
Qass LjUIL 

Book F?4 5 



/ 



THE RISE 



OP 



THE REPUBLIC 




S'UL 



3^/ 



THE UNITED STATES. 



BY 



RICHARD FROTPIINGHAM. 



THIRD EDITION. 



4^2f ^k^J 



BOSTON: 
LrrTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 

1881. 



t 2lio 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the ye&r 1872, by 

RICHARD FROTHINGHAM, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 

By transfer 
5 h\901 



CAMbkidgk: 
press of john wilson ant) son. 



TO 

MY WIFE, 

i DEDICATE THIS WORK. 



PREFACE. 



Thirty-five years ago I prepared, con amore^ a 
series of papers on " The History of Charlestown," 
my native place, designed for the local newspaper ; 
but they were published in pamphlet form. The 
first number appeared in 1815, and six additional 
numbers brought the history down to the period of 
the battle of Bunker Hill. 

In the same spirit I then made collections relative 
to the opening scenes of the war of the Revolution ; 
and, as there was no complete narrative of these 
events, I pubHshed in 1849 the "History of the Siege 
of Boston, and of the Battles of Lexington, Concord, 
and Bunker Hill." 

In these researches I became familiar with the po- 
litical career of Joseph Warren, and began to frame 
a narrative of the transactions in which he figured as 
a political leader ; and this was the occasion of the 
preparation of "The Life and Times of Joseph War- 
ren," published in 1865. 

I also furnished articles more or less elaborate to a 
Boston daily newspaper, on points of American his- 
tory, as an occasional contributor from 1838 to 1852, 



VI PREFACE. 

and for the succeeding thirteen years as one of the 
proprietors and editors. An article on the Declara- 
tion of Independence, dealing with principles, printed 
on the Fourth of July, 1842, — another, on the suc- 
ceeding anniversary relating facts, — and a third on 
the 2d of March, 1854, on the first covenant of the 
country, — fill several columns, and wduld make a 
considerable pamphlet. These papers, to say nothing 
of others, relate to the formative process of the na- 
tion.^ 

These circumstances, with others not necessary to 
be stated, led me to historical research having in view 
the one clear and distinct object of tracing the de- 
velopment of the national life; a theme separate from 
the ordinary course of civil and military transactions, 
and requiring events to be selected from their rela- 
tion to principles, and to be traced to their causes. 
The theme, as 'I went on, seemed to grow beyond my 
reach. I Avell knew that it was only by patient labor, 
that I could hope to justify the attempt to deal with it. 
I tried to form in my mind a picture of the many 
streams that met and united in the current which ter- 

^ It is said that there has not been a single writer " who has attempted to 
distinguish between the History of the United States and the Political Literature of 
the country; tliat is, in giving an account of the facts, of a public or private nature, 
that controlled the events of any era or epoch, almost all have altogether failed to 
look to the inner influence, so to speak, of the writings, the proceedings of public 
bodies, the state papers, that in each case preceded and moulded and accompanied 
every important occurrence of the different phases of our national existence. They 
hare conlined their attention too much to the effect of the development of both the 
political and social progress of our earlier existence, and have paid too little heed to 
the causes of the gradual expansion of political opinions and the origin of our steady 
and successful advance to independence and constitutional government." — The 
PiMi MontUii.Jhr Au(,ust, 1871, vcl. ii. 379. 



PREFACE. Vii 

minated in the broad expanse of a nation. I also 
endeavored to form an idea of the spirit of the men 
of the past, from their own words uttered in the midst 
of their labors, and wet as it were with the sweat of 
their brows, — of the conservatives who tried to stay 
the current, as well as of the men of progress who 
recognized it and were borne onward by it. Yet the 
attainment of the ideal is but the commencement of 
the work. The difficulty is to make the page alive 
with the moving waters. I feel conscious that this is 
but imperfectly done. 

I am indebted to Rev. Edwin H. Chapin, D.D., for 
files of Philadelphia newspapers during the Revolu- 
tionary period; and to Hon. Charles H. Warren, for 
the original letter of John Adams, printed in the Ap- 
pendix. For valuable aid in preparing the work for 
the press, I express grateful acknowledgments to Wil- 
liam F. Poole, Esq., Rev. Chandler Robbins, D.D., 
and Rev. Andrew P. Peabody, D.D. 

RICHARD FROTHINGHAM. 
Charlestowx, Mass., 

Sept. 12, 1872. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Inteoddction. — Ideas of Local Self-government and of Nationai 

Union. 



page 

Introduction 1 

Territory which became the United 

States 1 

Designed by Providence to be the 

Abode of a Great Nation ... 2 

Growth of the Population .... 3 

Their Relation of Union .... 4 

Character of the Aborigines ... 4 
The Land awaiting a New Civiliza- 

tiun 5 

Preparation in the Old World for 

Colonization 5 

Pagan Idea of Man 6 

Christian Idea of Man 6 

Transformation of Society effected 

by Christianity 6 

Its Political Consequences .... 7 
Pioneers of the Republican School : — 

George Buchanan 7 

Hubert Lanquet 8 

John Milton 8 

John Locke 8 

Algernon Sidney 9 

International Law respecting Rights 

to the Soil 9 

Migrations, Individual 10 

Ancestry of the American Race . . 10 
Motives of the Colonists .... 11 
Their Boldness in applying Prin- 
ciples 11 



PAGB 

Polity of the United States peculiar 11 

" E Pluribus Unum " 11 

Circumstances that created Diver- 
sity 12 

Ideas that produced Union ... 12 
Local Selt-government and Union 
the Elements of the Polity of the 

United States 13 

Local Self-government 14 

Among the Germans .... 14 

Among the Saxons .... 14 

Undermined by the Crown . . 15 

Applied by the Colonists . . 15 

In Municipal Government . . 16 

In Representation 17 

The Formation of Assemblies . . 18 

The Formation of Municipalities . 19 

The Elective Franchise .... 25 

The Public Meeting 27 

Product of Local Self-government . 28 

Idea of National Union .... 28 

Earlj' Conception of Union ... 28 
Embodiments of Union during the 

Colonial Period 29 

Urged in a Spirit of Allegiance to 

the Crown 30 

Union at the Revolution urged in 
the view of forming an Independ- 
ent Nation 30 

Foundations of the Republic ... 31 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER n. 

The Combination op Local Self-government and Union in the 
New England Confederacy. 

1643 to 1684. 



FAOB 

Society in the Colonies, developed 

first under the Law of Diversity . 33 
Settlements in North America in 

1643 33 

Maps of the Country 34 

Progress of Colonization .... 34 

How directed by England .... 35 

General Assault by the Indians • . 36 

New England in 1643 36 

Charged with aiming at Sover- 
eignty 37 

Protestations of Loyalty .... 38 

Appeal of Edward Winslow for Aid 38 

The Colonies cast on themselves • 38 

They aim at Union 39 

Confederation of 1643 39 

Congratulation of Thomas Hooker . 40 
Articles of the Confederation ... 40 
Character of the Confederation . . 42 
QuaUfication of Church Member- 
ship 43 

Benefits of the Confederation . . 44 

Long Parliament and New England 44 

Jealousy of New England ... 45 

Lords of Trade and Plantations . . 45 

Appeals to this Board 45 

Answer of Massachusetts .... 46 

Magna Charta cited 46 

Charge of aiming at Sovereignty . 46 

Answer of Edward Winslow ... 47 

Appeals disallowed 47 

The Colonies and the Long Parlia- 
ment 47 

The Colonies and Cromwell ... 48 
New England Confederation pros- 
perous 48 

Eliot's Christian Commonwealth . 49 

Restoration of Charles II 49 

Clarendon and Kepublicanism . . 49 

Council for Foreign Plantations . . 50 



FAGB 

Complaints against New England . 51 

The Colonies and the Sovereignty . 51 

Charge of aiming at Independence . 51 

Charters of Charles II 52 

Subordination to the Sovereignty . 53 
Grant to the Duke of York ... 53 
Creation of a Special Commission . 54 
Empowered to regulate the Inter- 
nal Affairs of New England . . 54 
Commissioners' Arrival in Boston . 54 
Reduction of New Netherland . . 55 

Geographical Unity 55 

Massachusetts and the Commission 55 
The Commissioners and Three Colo- 
nies 55 

In Massachusetts 56 

Aid the General Election . . 57 
Confer with the General Court 67 
The Commission asserts its Author- 
ity 58 

The General Court nullifies its Acts 59 
The Commissioners charge the Gen- 
eral Court with denying the Sov- 
ereignty 59 

Answer of the General Court ... 60 
Illegality of the Commission ... 62 
Decline of the Confederacy ... 63 
Meetings of the Commissioners . . 63 
Public Mind not ripe for Union . . 64 
Loyalty of New England .... 65 
Views of the Confederacy ... 66 
Absurdity of the Charge of Inde- 
pendence 66 

Affection for England 67 

Prophecies concerning America . . 68 

Seneca's Venient Annis .... 68 

Lines on America by Pulci ... 70 

Herbert 70 

Cowley 71 



CONTENTS. 



XI 



CHAPTER III. 

How Aggression on tI.e Principle of Local Self-government led 
TO Revolution and Intercolonial Correspondence, and how a 
Common Peril occasioned a Congress. 



1684 to 1690. 



PAGE 

Preparation for a Congress ... 72 

North America in 1688 72 

Maps of the Country 73 

Numbers of the French and English 73 
The Twelve English Colonies . . 73 
Their General Characteristics . . 75 
Spirit of the Local Governments . 76 
Privy Council order American Af- 
fairs 77 

Debates in this Board 78 

Consolidation of the Colonial Gov- 
ernments resolved on .... 78 

Accession of James II 79 

Question of American Taxation . . 79 

Edward Randolph 79 

Reign of Despotic Power .... 80 

Opposition roused in the Colonies . 81 

Overthrow of Andros 81 

Results of Popular Action .... 82 

Accession of William and Mary . . 83 

Rise of Jacob Liesler 83 

Opposition to his Authority ... 81 



Intercolonial Correspondence . . . 

Designs of France in America . . 

The Five Nations desire Peace . . 

Conference of Four Colonies at Al- 
bany 

Increasing Danger from France . . 

Call for the New England Confeder- 
acy 

Factions in New York 

Burning of Schenectady . . . . 

Massachusetts invites a Congress . 

Replies of the Colonies 

Meeting of Commissioners . . . . 

Agreement to raise a Military Force 

Result of Military Operations . . 

Execution of Jacob Liesler . . . 

Career of Simon Bradstreet . . . 

Enthusiasm for William and Mary . 

Charge of Independence . . . . 

Absurdity of this Charge . . . . 

Prosperity of the English Colonies . 

Prophecy of Thomas Browne . . 



PAGE 

. 84 
. 85 

. 86 



87 



87 



89 
90 
91 
92 
93 
93 
95 
96 
97 
93 
99 
99 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Ideas of Local Self-government and of Union for Seventy 
Years, and theih Combination in the Plan adopted by tob 
Albany Convention. 

1690 TO 1760. 



The Law of Diversity paramount 

for Seventy Years 101 

North America in 1760 .... 101 

General Maps 102 

Races of the Colonists .... 103 

Governments of Thirteen Colonies 104 
Their Population and Political 

Weight 104 

Characteristics of the New-Eng- 

landers 105 

The Colonies a Great American 

Asylum 106 

Traits of an American .... 107 



Spirit of British Administrations . 107 
The Lords of Trade and Planta- 
tions 108 

French and Indian W vrs . . . . 108 

Common Danger suggested Union 109 

Need of an American Constitution 110 

Plan of Union, by William I'enn . 110 '-^ 

By Charles Davenant . . . lll|^x^ 
Contemporary Criticism on these 

Plans 112 ^' 

Plan of Union by Daniel Coxe . . 113 ^'' 

The Popular Party and Union . . 114 ■' 

The Prerogative Party and Union 114 '— 



Xll 



CONTENTS. 



PAOE- 

Scheme of Eobert Livingston . . 115 
Of Archibald Kennedy . . . lie' 
Proposal of Governor l^inwiddie . 116^' 
Objects of the Two Parties com- 
pared 117 

Congresses and Conventions . . 118 

Congresses from 1684 to 1751 . . 118 

Speech of Governor Clinton . . . 120 

Intercolonial Correspondence . . 121 
Jealousy by the Crown of American 

Action 121 

Development of Self-government . 121 
Fidelity to its Principles .... 123 
The Crown regarded as a Protector 123 
Royal Governors and Self-govern- 
ment 124 

The Privy Council and Local Gov- 
ernment 125 

The Lords of Trade and the Pre- 
rogative 125 

Illegal Exercise of the Prerogative 125 

Resisted by the Assemblies . . . 125 

Claims of the Prerogative . . . 127 
State Papers circulated by the 

Press 128 

The Newspaper in America . . . 129 

Encroachments of the French . . 130 

Inetficiency of the Lords of Trade . 131 

Views of Halifax and Townshend . 131 

The Crown decide to resist France 131 

Call of a Convention at Albany . 132 

The Colonists and the French . . 133 



PAGB 

Sj)eech of Washington .... 133 
Royal Governors commend the 

Convention 134 

Condition of the Colonies .... 136 

Meeting of the Convention . . . 137 

Character of its Members . . . 138 

Nature of the Commissions . . . 139 

Conferences with the Indians . . 139 

Resolve that Union is a Necessity . 140 

The Committee to report a Plan . 140 

Franklin's Plan 141 

Report of the Committee .... 142 

Albany. Plan of Union 142 

Referred to the Assemblies . . . 144 
Commended in the Press .... 145 
Recommended by Royal Governors 146 
Rejected by the Assemblies . . . 146 
Neglected by Lords of Trade . . 148 
Character of the Albanj' Plan . . 148 
Franklin's Conception of a Self-sus- 
taining Government .... 148 
Fatal Objection to the Plan . . . 15C 
Discussion of Plans of Union . . 151 
Predictions that Union was Im- 
possible 151 

Conquest of Canada 152 

General Rejoicing 153 

Charge of aiming at Independence 153 

Prophecies of the Future .... 155 

Description of America .... 156 

Love of Liberty 157 



CHAPTER V. 

How THE Assertion by Parliament of a Right to tax the Colonies 
BY the Stamp Act evoked a Sentiment of Union, and occa- 
sioned a General Congress. 

1760 to 1766. 



An Epoch in History . . 
The American Revolution 
The Thirteen Colonies . . 
George III. and Lord Bute 
Policy respecting America 
Embodied in Instructions i 

Acts of Trade .... 
In the Declaratory Resolves 
Formation of Parties . . 



the 



158 

158 
159 
160 
161 

162 
163 
164 



Whigs based on the Christian Idea 

of Man 165 

Tories based on the Supremacy of 

Law 165 

Eft'ect of the Declaratory Resol-res 166 
Boston and Samuel Adams . . . 167 
Instructions enjoining United Ef- 
fort 168 

The General Court and James Otis 168 



CONTENTS. 



xm 



PAGE 

His Rights of the British Colonies 169 

Committees of Correspundence . . 171 

Petitions of the Assemblies . . . 172 

Tone of the I'ress 174 

Passage of the Stamp Act . . . 175 

Speech of Isaac, Barr^ 176 

Resistance of the Sons of Libertj' . 177 

James Otis on Union 177 

Call by Massachusetts of a Con- 
gress 178 

Response of the Colonies .... 178 

Virginia and Pat' icli Henry . . 179 

Resolves on the Stamp Act . . . 180 

Fame of the Resolves 181 

Response of Providence to Massa- 
chusetts and Virginia .... 181 
South Carolina and Christopher 

Gadsden 182 

Thirteen Colonies express Sym- 
pathy with a Congress .... 182 
Associations to resist the Stamp 
Act 183 



PAGE 

Popular Uprisings and Outrages . 183 

Political Excitement in New York 184 

The Stamp-act Congress .... 185 

Declaration of Rights 186 

Resolves and Petition .... 187 

Sentiments of its Members . . . 188 

Speech of Christopher Gadsden . 188 

Signing of the Petition .... 188 

Reception of the Proceedings . . 189 

Sentiment of Union 189 

Embodied by the Assemblies . . 190 

The Prerogative Party and Union 191 

The Popular Party and Union . . 192 

Terms America and Countrj- . . 192 

Assertion of the Rights of Labor . 193 

Growth of Union 195 

Joy on the Repeal of the Stamp 

Act 196 

Tory Charge of Independence . . 197 
Whig Resolve to defend American 

Liberty 198 

Prophecies concerning America . 199 



CHAPTER VI. 

How THE Assertion by Parliament, in the Townshend Revenite 
Acts, of Absolute Power over the Colonies, was met by a 
Constitutional Opposition, and how an Arbitrary Royal Order 
ELICITED Action in a Similar Spirit by Thirteen Assemblies, in 
Defence of their Local Self-government. 

1706 TO 1770. 



A Constitutional Opposition and 

Public Opinion 201 

Repeal of the Stamp Act — 

In America 201 

In England 202 

Charles Townshend on America . 203 

The Townshend Revenue Acts. . 204 

Their Object political 204 

Their Aggression on the Right to 

maivc the Local Law .... 205 

Death of Townshend 206 

Lord North and Lord Hillsborough 206 
A New Political Movement on the 

Basis of Social Order .... 206 

James Otis on Mobs 206 

Jonathan Mayhew on Union . . 207 

The Farmers' Letters 208 



The Non-importation Agreement . 208 

Meeting of the Assembh' of Massa- 
chusetts 209 

Their Letter to their Agent in Lon- 
don 210 

Tlieir Petition to the King ... 211 

Their Circular Letter suggesting 
Concurrent Action 212 

Reply of the Assembly of New 

Hampshire 213 

Of Virginia 213 

Of New Jersey 214 

Of Connecticut 214 

Royal Order to rescind the Circu- 
lar Letter 214 

Communicated by Governor Ber- 
nard 216 



XIV 



CONTENTS. 



PAOE 

Denunciation bj James Otis . . 217 
The Assembly' refuses to rescind 

the Letter 218 

The Vote of Ninuty-two .... 219 

Bernard dissolves the Assembly . 220 

Profound Sensation in the Colonies 221 
Royal Order to treat the Circular 

Letter with Contempt .... 221 

The Press on this Order .... 222 

Question of the Circular Letter and 

Royal Order in Maryland . . . 223 

In South Carolina .... 223 

In Georgia 224 

In Rhode Island 225 

In Pennsylvania 225 

In Delaware 226 

In New York 226 

In North Carolina .... 227 
Popular Approval of the Assem- 
blies 227 

The Action new in the Political 

World 228 

" Ninety -two " and " Forty-five " 229 
The Prayer of the Colonies to the 

Sovereignty 230 

Fate of the Petitions 231 

The Arraignment of Massachu- 
setts 231 

The Colonists charged with Trea- 
son . . . 232 

Decision to transport the Popular 

Leaders to England 232 

Attitude of Virginia 233 

Lord Botetourt 233 

Meeting of the Burgesses . . . 234 



PA OB 

Thomas Jefferson 234 

Resolves of the Burgesses . . . 235 
Their Reception in the Colonies . 237 
Their Endorsement by the Assem- 
blies 238 

Virginia gives an Impulse to the 

Non-importation Agreement . . 238 

Rise of an American Spirit . . . 240 
Partial Repeal of the Townshend 

Acts 240 

Effect of the Attempt to check Re- 
publicanism 241 

Progress in Political Science . . 241 
Disclaimer of the Aim of Independ- 
ence 242 

Propositions for a Union .... 242 
Union Movement of the Presby- 
terians 243 

Prophecy of Thomas Hutchinson . 244 
Of William Livingston of an 

American Constitution . . 244 
Prophecies. of Independence: — 

Of Samuel Adams .... 245 

Of the French Agents ... 245 

Of Chatelet 245 

Of Turgot 245 

OfChoiseul 245 

The Embodiment of Public Opin- 
ion elicited by the Townshend 

Acts 246 

European Sympathy with the Am- 
erican Cause 246 

The Cause of Humanity .... 247 

The Rising Glory of America . . 248 



CHAPTER VII. 

How THE Patriots advanced from an Embodiment of Public Opin- 
ion TO A Party Organization, by forming Committees of Cor- 
respondence. 

March, 1770, to August, 1773. 



From an Embodiment of Public 

Opinion to Organization ... 249 
The Tory Party attain Power . . 249 
Its aim to check Republicanism . 250 
Its Ideas embodied in the Declara- 
tory Act 250 

Its Design to undermine the Local 
Governments 251 



By the Method of Roj'al Instruc- - 

tions 251 

Law accepted by the Whigs . . . 251 
Instructions under the King's Sign- 
manual claimed to have the Force 

of Law 252 

Effectually resisted by the Whigs . 253 
Ability of their Argument . . . 254 



CONTENTS. 



XV 



PAOB 

Reliance on the Non- importation 

Agreement 256 

Failure of this Agreement . . . ' 257 
Dissension and War between the 

Colonies 258 

Political Agitation subsides . . . 259 
Fidelity of Samuel Adams . . . 261 
Proposes Union and Organization 262 
By the Method of Municipal Com- 
mittees of Correspondence . . 263 
Lord Dartmouth tlie Head of the 

American Department .... 264 

Issues fresh Royal Instructions . . 265 
The Occasion selected by Adams 

to effect Organization .... 265 
Boston chooses a Committee of Cor- 
respondence 266 

Character of the Committee . . . 267 
Their Report on the American 

Cause 268 

Faith of its Authors 270 

The Response cf the Towns . . . 271 

Passionate Appeal for Union . . 272 
Condemnation of the Movement by 

Governor Hutchinson .... 274 
General Apathy outside of Massa- 
chusetts 275 

A bold Roj'al Instruction . . . 276 

Spontaneous Burst of Indignation 277 
The Commission relative to the 

Destroyers of the Gaspee . . . 278 



PAQB 

Tameness of the Rhode Island As- 
sembly 279 

Resolution of the Virginia House 
of Burgesses 279 

They choose a Committee of Cor- 
respondence 280 

Dabney Carr and Thomas Jeffer- 
son 281 

Response to the Virginia Action . 281 

Five Assemblies adopt the Vir- 
ginia Plan 283 

Call for Union and a Congress . . 284 

Failure of the Rhode Island Com- 
mission 286 

Design of transporting the Popular 
Leaders abandoned 286 

Political Agitation subsides . . . 287 

Massachusetts and Virginia . . . 288 

Inactivity of the Six Legislative 
Committees 288 

Activity of the Municipal Com- 
mittees 289 

Speculation on the Future of Am- 
erica 290 

Dawning of a Sentiment of Na- 
tionality 291 

Determined Spirit of the Ameri- 
cans 292 

Urged to prepare for a Grand Am- 
erican Commonwealth .... 293 



CHAPTER VIII. 



How Events developed the American Union, and how the Db- 
mand for a general congress was accompanied by pledges to 
abide by its decisions. 

August, 1773, to August, 1774. 



From Organization to Union . . 294 
Public Sentiment in Favor of a Con- 
nection with Great Britain . . 294 
The Popular Leaders and Sover- 
eignty 296 

George III. and his Advisers . . 295 

They devise the Tea Act . . . . 296 

Character of this Act 296 

Designed to establish the Principle 

of the Declarator}' Act. . . . 297 

Teas consigned to Four Ports . . 298 



Reception of the News in the Colo- 
nies 298 

Nature of the Resistance contem- 
plated by the Patriots .... 299 

Their General Organization defec- 
tive 300 

Their Organization in Massachu- 
setts Efficient 300 

The Act met by an Intelligent Pub- 
lic Opinion 301 



XVI 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Action of the Patriots of Philadel- 
phia . 302 

Its Endorsement in Boston, New 

York, and Charleston .... 302 
Refusal of the Consignees in Boston 

to resign 303 

Circulars of Legislative Committees 303 

Public Meetings in Boston . . . 304 

Arrival of Three Ships with Teas . 304 

Spirit of the People 305 

Meeting of the Sixteenth of De- 
cember 306 

Speech of Josiah Quincy . . . 306 

The Boston Tea Party .... 307 

Destruction of the Tea .... 308 

The General Joy and Exultation . 309 

Judgment of Gordon and Ramsay 310 

The Nature of Popular Movements 311 
Six Assemblies choose Committees 

of Correspondence 311 

Inaction of the Twelve Legislative 

Committees 312 

Extension of Municipal Committees 313 
The Nullification of the Tea Act 

thorough 314 

Revival of a Spirit of Union . . 314 
Hopes indulged of a Congress . . 314 
Suggestion of an American Com- 
monwealth 314 

Political Agitation not general . . 315 
Four Months of Suspense . . . 315 
Insight and Faith of Samuel Ad- 
ams 316 

Feeling roused in England by the 

Destruction of the Tea .... 317 
Ministers judge Real Union of the 

Colonies impossible 318 



PAaB 

The King's Speech foreshadowing 

Penal Measures 319 

The Boston Port Act 319 

Its Reception in the Colonies . . 320 
Circulars ofthe Massachusetts Com- 
mittees of Correspondence . . 321 
Response to these Circulars . . . 322 
Spectacle on the First of June . . 324 
Boston in its Hour of Trial . . . 325 
Contributions for its Poor . . . 325 
Letters embodying the Fraternal 

Spirit . .' 326 

The Whigs complete their Organ- 
ization 327 

Tory View of this Organization . 328 
The Demand for a Congress . . . 329 
Arrival of General Gage from Eng- 
land 329 

His Dealing with the Massachusetts 

Assembly 330 

The Call for the Congress of 1774 331 
Town Meeting in Boston .... 332 
John Adams enters Political Life . 334 
Acquiescence in the Call for a Con- 
gress 335 

Pledges to abide by its Decisions . 336 

The Solemn League and Covenant 336 
The Determination that the Recom- 
mendations of Congress should 

have the Force of Laws . . . 337 

The Tories denounce this Action . 339 

Union and Liberty 340 

History presented in this Develop- 
ment 342 

Enthusiasm created by Union . . 342 
Ezra Stiles predicts a Runnymede 

in America 343 



CHAPTER IX. 

How A General Congress formed the Association op the United 
Colonies, and how Support was pledged to the Inhabitants of 
Massachdsetts in resisting the Alteration of their Charter. 

August, 1774, to 1775. 



Union from Sentiment to Associa- 
tion 344 

The King proposes to alter the 
Massachusetts Charter .... 344 



Speeches of Lords North and Ger- 
main 344 

Passage of the Regulating Acts . 346 

Their Character and Reach . . • 847 



CONTENTS. 



XVll 



PAGE 

Known first through t>ie Bills . . 348 
Samuel Adams disclaims a Spirit 

of Rebellion 349 

Condemnation of the Acts . . • 349 
Massachusetts enjoined to refuse 

Obedience to them 350 

The Crisis of August, 1774 ... 353 
Hutchinson's Conversation with 

the King . 353 

Lord Dartmouth's Instructions to 

execute the Acts 354 

General (iage proceeds to carrj' 

them into Kffect 355 

The Uprising against them . . . 35G 
Their Nullification thorough . . 357 
Words of Joseph Warren . . . . 357 
Presentiment that Anns must de- 
cide the Question 358 

The Congress of 1774 359 

Character of the Members . . . 360 
The Communities represented . . 361 
Organization of the Congress . . 364 
Reception of the Suffolk Resolves . 366 
Approval of the Attitude of the 

People of Massachusetts . . . 366 
Opposition of Joseph Galloway . 367 

His Scheme of Union 367 

Application for Advice from Mas- 
sachusetts 368 

Congress state to Gage that the 
Approbation of the People of 
Massachusetts was universal . . 368 
And pledge them the Support of all 

America 369 

Washington disclaims Independ- 
ence 369 

Advice to Massachusetts on Gov- 
ernment 370 

Declaration of Rights 371 

Association of the United Colonies 372 
Address to the People of Great 

Britain 374 

Address to the People of the Colo- 
nies 375 

Addresses to the Unrepresented 
Colonies 375 



PAGE 

Petition to the Kin|; 376 

Eulogy on Congress by the Whigs 377 
Denunciation of Congress by the 

Tories 378 

Judgment on it of History . . . 379 
Praise awarded to its Papers . . 380 
Its Pledge to Massachusetts re- 
flected Public Opinion .... 381 
As embodied in Letters accompany- 
ing Donations for the Poor of 

Boston 381 

Extracts from Letters from — 

New Hampshire 382 

Connecticut 383 

Rhode Island 385 

New York 386 

New Jersej' 386 

Pennsylvania 387 

Delaware 387 

Maryland 387 

Virginia 388 

North Carolina 389 

South Carolina 390 

Georgia 390 

Characteristics of this Record . . 391 
Massachusetts conforms to the Ad- 
vice of Congress 391 

Military Preparation in Massachu- 
setts . 392 

Appeal of its Provincial Congress 

in behalf of Order 393 

Military Preparation in other Colo- 

-nies 393 

Letter of Charles Lee 394 

Ratification and Execution of the 

Association 395 

Unity of Sentiment 395 

LTnion attains the Strength of Law 397 

Importance of this Result . . . 398 
View of Union by Galloway and 

Henry 399 

Just Estimate of Union by the 

Popular Leaders 400 

Prophecies concerning America . 401 

An American urges Independence 401 



XVlll 



CONTENTFl 



CHAPTER X. 

When the Popular Leaders recognized the Fact of Revolutiow, 

AND began to aim AT INDEPENDENCE, AND HOW THET MET THE 

Question of Sovereignty. 

1775. — January to November. 



From Association to Revolution . 403 
Population of the United Colonies 403 
The Legal Relations of the People 404 
Development in Thirteen Commu- 
nities 405 

In the Relation of Union .... 405 
And growing into Independent 

States in Union 406 

Their Plea to the Sovereign . . . 406 
George III. and America . . . 407 
His Speech to Parliament . . . 408 
His Reception of the Petition of 

Congress 408 

The Privy Council decide to issue 
a Proclamation declaring a Re- 
bellion 409 

The Petition in Parliament . . . 409 
Declaration of both Houses . . . 410 
The Coercive Measures popular . 410 
Lord North proposes a Plan of Con- 
ciliation 411 

His Ultimatum addressed to Franii- 

lin . 412 

Remarkable Words sent by Frank- 
lin to Lord North 413 

The Popular Party on receiving 

the Warlike News 413 

Hostilities at Lexington and Con- 
cord 414 

Their Effect in the Colonies . . . 415 
Reception of Lord North's Plan . 417 
Answer of the Assembly of Penn- 
sylvania 417 

Of New Jersey 418 

Of Virginia 418 

All the Assemblies defer to Con- 
gress Questions of War and Peace 419 
The Congress of 1775 .... 419 
Applications from Massachusetts, 
New York, New Hampshire, and 
Mecklenburg County, N. C. . 422 
The alleged Mecklenburg Declara- 
tion of Independence .... 422 



faqe 

The Applications force on Congress 

the Issue of Sovereignty . . . 424 
American Solution of the Questiofl 

of Sovereignty 424 

Public Mind not ripe for Inde- 
pendence 427 

Congress decline to deal with the 
Point of Sovereignty .... 428 
Assume the Army before Bos- 
ton 429 

Washington chosen Commander- 
in-chief 429 

Thomas Jefferson enters Congress . 431 
Congress aim at a Redress of Griev- 
ances 432 

Its Papers 432 

Franklin submits a Plan of Con- 
federation 433 

Congress answer Lord North's 

Plan 434 

Second Petition to the King . . 435 
Work of Congress to the Adjourn- 
ment in August 437 

Examination of the Charge of 

Hypocrisy 437 

Situation of the Colonies . . . 439 
Submission of Massachusetts to the 

Advice of Congress 440 

Congress re-assemble 441 

Thirteen Colonies represented . . 441 
State of Public Opinion .... 442 
Congress hesitate to advise the 

Formation of Local Governments 443 
The Second Petition in England . 444 
The King's Proclamation declaring 

a Rebellion in the Colonies . . 445 
No Answer given to the Second 

Petition 446 

Effect of the Intell igence in Congress 447 
It advises New Hampshire and 
South Carolina to form Govern- 
ments 448 

Samuel Adams on this Action . 449 



CONTENTS. 



XIX 



PAOE 

Popular Leaders of Insight accept 

the Work of Eevolution . . . 450 
Altered Tone of Congress . . . 450 
Effect of the Proclamation on the 
People 451 



PAGE 

Independence urged . . . . . 452 

The Sentiment of Nationality . . 452 

Idea of founding a Republic . . 453 

Magnitude of the Work .... 454 



CHAPTER XL 

How THE People of the United Colonies by the Declaeation of 
Independence decreed their Existence as a Nation composed 
OF Free and Independent States. 

November and December, 1775, and to July, 1776. 



The United Colonics from Revolu- 
tion to National Power . . . 456 

Firmness of the King and the Par- 
liament 456 

Appointment of Lord George Ger- 
main 457 

Resolution of the Colonies in de- 
manding a Redress of Grievances 457 

The Popular Party a Unit in Armed 
Resistance 459 

And in regarding Congress as the 
Head of the Union 459 

The Scene of War from November 
to July 460 

Popular Leaders of Clear Vision 
urge the Step of Independence . 460 

And tliat the United Colonies 
should become a Nation and a 
Republic 461 

Until the Sentiment of Nationality 
became the Passion of the Party 

Growth of Public Opinion . . . 

The Popular Party divided on the 
Question of Independence . . 

Also on the Question of formmg 
Governments 464 

Samuel Adams and Independence 464 

John Dickinson and Independence 4G5 

He arrays the Middle Colonies by 
Instnictions against Independ- 
ence 465 

Declarations of New York, North 
Carolina, and Portsmouth against 
Independence 

Idea general that the Party were 
only opposing an Administration 

Growth of Opinion for Independ- 
ence steady 467 



461 
463 



463 



466 



467 



The Question on the Opening of 
1776 468 

Labors of Samuel Adams for Inde- 
pendence 469 

Popular Leaders earliest identified 

with the Movement 469 

Benjamin Rush and Thomas Paine 471 
Publication of "Common Sense" 472 
Account of this Pamphlet . . . 472 

Its Popularity 476 

General Agitation of the Question 477 
Formation of Parties on it . . . 
The Whigs aim to form One Nation 
Nationality and Republicanism cor- 
relative in Development . . . 
Parties in Congress on Independ- 
ence 483 

Action tending to Independence — 
In widening the Union . . . 
In disarming the Tories . . 
In the Equipment of Privateers 
In opening the Ports . . . 
In dealing with Foreign Pow- 
ers 

In the Proclamation for a Fast 

Franklin and Samuel Adams . . 

The Recommendation to form Local 

Governments on the Power of 

the People 491 

Advice of Congress followed by 
Massachusetts. . . . 
By New Hampshire . 
By South Carolina . 
Character of this Action . 
Welcomed by the Patriots 
Motion by John Adams to advise 
all the Colonies to form Govern- 
ments . 496 



478 
479 



483 



485 
485 
486 
486 

487 
489 
489 



491 

492 
493 
496 
495 



XX 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Debates on tjfs Motion .... 496 
Resolution of May Fifteenth . . 498 
Becomes the Platform of the Popu- 
lar Party 498 

Popular Movement to promote In- 
dependence 499 

Proposal to collect the Sense of 

the People on Independence . . 499 
Commended by Members of Con- 
gress 500 

Independence in North Carolina : — 
Effect of the Battle of Moore's 

Creek Bridge 502 

Meeting of the Provincial Con- 
gress 503 

Power given to Vote for Inde- 
pendence 503 

Independence in Rhode Island: — 

Request of Hopkins .... 504 

Power given to Vote for Inde- 
pendence ....... 505 

Act relating to Civil Processes 505 
Independence in Massachusetts: — 
Feeling represented by Haw- 
ley 505 

Act relating to Civil Prdcesses 506 
Resolution on Independence . 506 
Votes of the Towns .... 507 
Independence in Virginia: — 

State of Public Opinion . . 509 
Character of the Convention . 510 
Instructions to propose Inde- 
pendence in Congress . . 511 
Received with Enthusiasm . 511 
Four Colonies on the Fifteenth of 

May on Independence .... 512 
" The whole United Colonies upon 

the Verge of Revolution " . . 513 
Motion submitted on the Seventh 
of June in Congress on Inde- 
pendence 513 

Debate on this Motion .... 515 
Postponed for Three Weeks . . . 516 
Committee to prepare a Declara- 
tion 517 

Spectacle of Imminent Peril and 

High-toned Politics 517 

Independence in Pennsj'lvania: — 

Strength of the Opposition . 519 
Activity of the Popular Party 519 
Resolution of May Fifteenth . 520 
Great Public Meetin? ... 521 



PAGE 

Declare the Union paramount 521 
Conference of Committees . 521 
Authorize Independence . . 522 
Independence in Delaware: — 

Assembly adverse to Revolu- 
tion 523 

Resolution of May Fifteenth . 523 
Independence Authorized . . 523 
Independence in New Jersey: — 

The General Assembly . . . 524 
The Provincial Congress . . 524 
The Governor violates the 

Resolution of May Fifteenth 525 
His imprisonment .... 525 
Independence authorized . . 525 
Independence in Marj-land : — 
Instructions against a Separa- 
tion reiterated 526 

Popular Party adopt the Reso- 
lution of May Fifteenth . . 526 
County Instructions .... 526 
Independence authorized . . 527 
Independence in Georgiii: — 

Opposition Powerful .... 528 
Action of the Provincial Con- 
gress 528 

Independence in South Carolina: — 
Opposed by Large Numbers . 528 
Authorized by the Govern- 
ment 528 

Independence in New York: — 

Strength of the Opposition . 529 
The Provincial Congress . . 629 
Its Action on tiie Resolution of 

May Fifteenth 529 

Its Declination to authorize In- 
dependence 529 

Independence in Connecticut: — 

Act passed on Civil Processes 529 

Reply to Virginia 530 

Independence authorized . . 530 
Independence authorized in New 

Hampshire 530 

Twelve Colonies designated Con- 
gress to declare Independence . 530 
Union and Local Self-government 

recognized in this Political action 531 
Embodiment of Public Opinion . 531 
The Committee report the Draft of a 

Declaration 532 

Congress on the First of July . . 532 
Debate on Independence .... 633 



CONTENTS. 



XXI 



FAOK 

Speech of John Adams .... 634 

Of John Dickiuson .... 535 
Vote in Committee of the Whole on 

the Resolution for Independence 537 
Congress ou the Second of July . 538 
Resolution on Independence ad- 
opted 538 

Debate on the Draft of the Decla- 
ration 539 

Declaration of Independence . . 539 

Authenticated and circulated . . 544 

Adopted by New York .... 544 

Signature of the Declaration . . 544 

Service of the Members .... 54G 

John Adams 547 

Thomas Jetferson 547 

Welcome by the Teople of the Dec- 
laration 548 



PAOB 

Pledges of the Asssemblies to main- 
tain it 551 

Received with Enthusiasm by the 
Army 552 

Itidepeudence a Joint Act . . . 553 

Contemporary Estimate of the 
Greatness of the Step .... 554 

The Declaration of Independence 
the Organic Law of Union . . 555 

And the Embodiment of the Senti- 
ment of Nationality .... 556 

It announced the Fact of the Exist- 
ence of the United States as a 
Nation 557 

And the Theory of its Government 558 

Its Beneficial Effect on the Amer- 
ican Cause 558 



CHAPTER XII. 

How THE People by ordaining the Constitution of the United 
States instituted Republican GovERNiiENT. 

1776 TO 1790. 



From Nationality to Republican 

Government 561 

Sovereignty passed from the Crown 
to the People as formed into 

States 562 

Conviction of the Necessity of Am- 
erican Law 562 

The Governments of Six States . 563 
Formation of Government in New 

Jersey 564 

Delaware 564 

Maryland 564 

Pennsylvania 565 

North Carolina 566 

Georgia 566 

New York 566 

The Constitutions provide only for 

Domestic Affairs 567 

Eclat of the New Governments . 568 

John Adams ou their Lffect abroad 568 
Formation of a Government for the 

United States 569 

Preparation of .-Vrticles of Confed- 
eration 569 

Discussion on them in Congress .569 



Their Adoption and Transmission 

to the Legislatures 570 

Letter of Congress 571 

Ratification by Nine Legislatures . 571 
Appeal of Congress to complete the 

Confederation 572 

Period of Political Languor . . . 672 
The Failure to ratify the Articles 

injurious to the Cause .... 573 

Question of Western Lands . . . 574 

Action of Virginia 575 

Final Ratification of the Articles . 575 
Their Recognition of Union and 

Local Self-government . . . 576 
Official Announcement that the 

Confederation was the Law . . 577 
Flag of the United States ... 578 
Defects of the Confederation . . 578 
Salutary Efl'ects of the Establish- 
ment of Government .... 578 
Robert R. Livingston on settling 

Disputes between States . . . 578 
The Confederation regarded a Step 

towards a Better System . . . 579 

Proclamation of Piece .... 580 



xxu 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Resignation by Washington of his 
Commission 581 

Public Sentiment on the Peace . 582 

Inadequac3' of the Confederation to 
protect American Rights . . . 584 

The Fact lamented by Patriotic 
Americans 584 

Alexander Hamilton 584 

James Madison 585 

Washington's Statement of the 
National Want 586 

Method of a Convention to mature 
a System Historical .... 586 

Proposed by Virginia under the 
lead of Madison 587 

The Annapolis Convention . • . 587 

Its recommendation of a Conven- 
tion to meet in [Philadelphia . . 587 

Usurpation by Local Officials of Na 
tional Functions 587 

This Lawless Spirit breaks out in 
Shays's Rebellion 588 

The Virginia Legislature adopts 
the Recommendation of a Con- 
vention 589 

Congress recommend the Legis- 
latures to appoint Delegates . . 589 

Delegates meet in Independence 
Hal] 589 

Character of the Convention . . 590 

Records of its Four Months of 
Lubor 590 

Plans submitted for a National 
Government 591 

The Determination to frame a New 
System 592 



FAOB 

Franklin's Speech on Compromise 592 
Question of the Spheres of Power 

of the Local and the General . 593 
The Convention agree on the Basis 

of a Constitution 593 

Franklin on the Constitution . . 594 

Washington on Representation . 595 

The Signing of the Constitution . 595 

Letter of the Convention . . . 597 
The Constitution referred to the 

People 597 

The General Welcome .... 598 
Formation of Parties on the Ques- 
tion of its Adoption .... 599 
The Constitution ordained and 

established 599 

This an Act of the Sovereign Power 600 
Recognition and Guarantee — 

Of the State 601 

Of the Union 601 

Establishment of the Government 603 

Inaugural Address of Washington 603 
Welcome by the Liberal World of 

a Republican Government . . 605 

Foundations of its Success . . . 606 

Spectacle of Stability and Progress 607 
Tribute to its Operation for Seventy 

Years 607 

The Ordeal ofthe Civil War . . 608 

Verdict of the Struggle .... 608 
Process of the Multiplication of 

States 608 

Prophecy of Nathaniel Ames . . 609 
Injunction of the Founders of the 

Republic to cherish the Uoioa . 610 



THE RISE 



REPUBLIC OF THE UNITED STATES. 



THE RiS^ 



REPUBLIC OF THE UOTTED STATES. 



CHAPTER I. 

Introduction. — Ideas of Local Self-government and of Na- 
tional Union. 

I PURPOSE in these pages to sketch the political history of 
the Rise of the Republic of the United States. I shall 
endeavor to frame a narrative of events, with their causes 
and relations, which derive interest and importance from 
their connection with the formation and direction of public 
opinion, the development of fundamental principles, and the 
embodiment of these principles into institutions and laws. 
I shall aim to show how the European emigrant, imbued 
with the spirit of a new civilization, organized self-governing 
communities, and to follow the stages of their growth into a 
Union. I shall then trace the origin and rise of a senti- 
ment of nationality, and the effort by which it became era- 
bodied in the Declaration of Independence, which was the 
first covenant of our country ; and in the Federal Constitu- 
tion, which is the supreme law of the land. 

The thirteen colonies, destined to become the United 
States, were planted on that portion of the territory of 
North America which lies between the Alleghany Mountains 
and the Atlantic coast. This region, of a mean breadth of 

1 



\ 



THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 



about one hundred miles, and nine hundred miles in length, 
is characterized as a long ridge of rock and sand, presenting 
obstacles, rather than offering temptations, to the husband- 
man. It liad, however, uo wastes like the deserts of Africa, 
and no impassable barriers between the north and the 
south, while parts of it were enriched by nature with the 
almost luxurious fruitfulness of the torrid zone. Its coasts 
were admirably adapted to foster the growth of a commer- 
cial marine ; and its long, wide, and deep rivers invited 
intercommunication. To the rear of this region was the 
valley of the Mississippi, " the most magnificent dwelling- 
place prepared by God for man's abode." ^ The whole con- 
tinent seemed to be fashioned by Providence for the uses 
of a great nation.^ 

At the period of the formation of the Republic, pioneers 
had penetrated the forests beyond the Atlantic slope, and had 
commenced settle;nents on the banks of the Ohio and the 
Mississippi Rivers ; but the growtli of population and wealth 
in the vast valley between the Alleghanies and tlie Rocky 
Mountains, and the extension of the national domain on- 
ward to the Pacific Ocean, have taken place mainly in the 
nineteenth century.^ The original limits of the United 
States embraced an area of about eight hundred thousand 
square miles. Additions of territory extended the bounda- 

^ De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, i. 22. Bowen's edition. 

2 De Tocqueville, in chap i. of his '• Democracy' in America," in dwelling on the 
physical characteristics of the continent, says, p. 24, that North America seemed 
created to be the domain of intelligence. It is urged in No. 2 of the " Federalist" 
(1787), that the one, connected, fertile, Avide-spreading countrj' indicated the design 
of Providence that it should be under one political sovereignty. The thought was 
common in the newspapers from 1765 to 1775 Franklin (Sparks's Works of 
Franklin, vii. 334) wrote, in 1766, to Lord Kames, '' America, an immense territory, 
favored by nature with all advantages of climate, soils, great navigable rivers and 
lakes, &c , must become a great country, populous and mighty." 

3 Gallagher (Address before the Ohio Ilist Soc, cited by Webster, Works, ii. 
607) states, that, prior to the year 1800, eight or ten keel-boats, of about twenty-five 
tons each, performed all the carrying trade between Cincinnati and Pittsburg. 
The tirst Government vessel appeared on Lake Erie in 1802; the first steamboat 
■was launched at Pittsburg in 1811 ; the first on Lake Michigan in 1826; and the first 
appeared at Chicago in 1832. 



LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT AND NATIONAL UNION. 3 

rios, until, on tlie cast witli an Atlantic front looking on 
Europe, and on the west with a Pacific coast stretching 
towards Asia, they have become as broad as the continent, 
and hence have readied the ideal of the men of the Revolu- 
tionary age. But they are yet bounded on the north by the 
British Possessions, and on the south by Mexico and the 
Gulf which bears its name. They now embrace an area of 
three million four hundred and sixty-six thousand square 
miles. ^ The population has increased from about two mil- 
lions and a half, at the period of the Revolution, to thirty- 
nine millions. And, although society everywhere presented 
on its surface the aspect of development into the form of dis- 
tinct communities or colonies, and independent States, in 
which the people of each were units, yet beneath this diver- 
sity arc ever found affinities of race, language, religion, 
and, more than all, of political ideas and institutions, and 
common memories, which form the groundwork of a power- 
ful nationality .2 This element of Union has met trium- 
phantly every trial. Its greatest crisis by far was the late 
appeal in the only tribunal having full jurisdiction between 



1 The nrea of the United States was estimated in 1783 at 820,680 square miles; 
in 1854, at 2,936,166; in 1868, at about 3,466,000. The following are the statistics 
of the area : — 

Square Miles 

Original limits of the Thirteen States 820,680 

Louisiana, purcha.'ed r'f France, in 1803, for $15,000,000 899,579 

Florida, purchased of Spain, in 1809. for 83.000.000 66,900 

Territory confirmed by the Oregon Treaty in 1842 and 1846 308,052 

Texas, annexed in 1816 (Texas debt), $7,500,000 318.000 

New Jlexico and California in 1847 (co.it of the w!ir), $15,000,000 522,955 

Arizona, purch,a!=ed of Mexico, in 1854, for $10.000,000 30,000 

Alaska, purchased of Rusf^ia. in 1867, for $7,200,000 ■ 500,000 

3.466.156 



The statistics of the area, with the exception of those of Arizona and Alaska, are 
taken from the Compendium of the Census of 1850. Gibbon, distrustinff the author- 
ity he cites (vol. i, 164), gives the area of the Eoman Empire at 1,600,000 square 
miles. 

- Mill (Considerations on Representative Government, p. 308), in remarking on 
the causes of a feeling of nationality, says, " The strongest of all is identity of 
political antecedents, the possession of a national history, and consequent community 
of recollections. 



4 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

nations and fragments of nations, the ultima ratio regum, — 
the tribunal of force. The judgment then rendered,^ after 
a field of war unparalleled in the annals of domestic strife, 
is, that these States and communities are associated in a 
bond of union that is indissoluble ; that the supreme law 
of the land ordained in the Constitution is paramount ; that 
tlie Government, acting under this law, has the right and 
power to vindicate its authority by force ; and that itself is 
the judge of the nature and extent of its own powers. 
This nation has in its keeping " the last word in human 
political institutions," — the Republican form of Govern- 
ment.2 

The vast region which the flag of the United States pro- 
tects was, two centuries and a half ago, the roaming ground 
of tribes of Indians. They presented everywhere the copper- 
colored complexion and common traits of character. They 
were cold, stoical, and melancholy ; mild and hospitable 
when at peace, ferocious and treacherous when at war ; chil- 
dren of the forest, living in the hunter stage of civilization. 
They transmit no story of the play of their feelings in the 
quiet of domestic life, or in the passion and the storm of 
war. They were peoples without annals. They had man- 
ners rather than laws.^ They exhibited, from one extremity 
to the other of the territory now the United States, the 
same melancholy spectacle of the absence of culture, prog- 
ress, and aspiration. Neither the minute nor the grand 
in nature incited them to study her laws or to employ her 



1 Letter of Hon. Isaac F. Redfield, Sept 30, 1865. 

2 Draper, in remarkinpf on the late civil war (Civil Policy in America, p. 85), 
sa}'s, " The history of the world cannot furnish a more splendid example of un- 
wavering fortitude, unshrinking selt-sacrifice, in vindication of n itional life; " and 
(p. 230) American history illustrates the political force of the idea, " that there sh:ill 
exist on this continent one Republic, great and indivisible." In the volume of 
Kssays. entitled " InternHtional Policy" (London, 1866), it is s;iid, p. 41, "Republi- 
can government, with all its noble associations and inherent advantages, is, as we 
believe the last word in human political institutions. Without any need for impa- 
tience, Europe is moving towards it." 

8 Montesquieu, book xviii. chap. 13. 



LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT AND NATIONAL UNION. 5 

forces. The implements thej used were made of bones and 
stone instead of iron and steel. Neither the exuberance of 
the soil, nor the magnificence of the rivers, nor the influ- 
ence of climate, nor the geographical conditions that stimu- 
late commerce, roused in them the capacity to develop the 
resources of this splendid country; and it is a just inference, 
tiiat their successive generations passed away with hardly 
more heed to any divine command to subdue and replenish 
the earth than is evinced in the falling of the autumnal 
leaves. The wonderful riches of the land which they pom- 
pously called their own were an untouched treasury. It 
was virtually a waste, awaiting, in the order of Providence, 
the magic influence of an incoming race, imbued with the 
spirit of a new civilization.^ 

The period referred to was an epoch in which there had 
been a providential preparation for great events in the Old 
World. It was an era of wonderful discovery in the heavens 
and the earth.^ It was also the period of the Reformation. 
This, in its essence, was the assertion of the principle of 
individuality, or of true spiritual freedom;^ and in the 
beginning, not by Protestants alone, of whom Luther was 
the great exponent, but by Catholics also, represented in the 
polished and profound Reuchlin.^ Though first occupied 
with subjects not connected with political speculation, yet 
it was natural and inevitable, that inquiry should widen out 
from the realm of the Church into that of the State. Then 



1 Guyot (Eartli and Man, p. 217) says of the Indian, that the exulierance of the 
soil has never been of vahie to him, and that he never ascended to the ranii of the 
pastoral luan. De Tocqueville (DeniocrMcy in America, i. 29) states of the coun- 
try, "If may be justly said, at the time of its discovery by Europeans, to have 
formed one great desert. The Indians occupied without possessing it." 

2 Humboldt (Cosmos, vol. ii. 681) says, "The period of the greatest discov- 
eries* in space over the surfice of our planet was immediately succeeded bj' the 
reveliitions of the telescope, through which man may be said to have taken posses- 
sion of a considerable portion of the heavens." 

8 IJrycc, Holy Roman Empire, 359. 

* Frederick Schlegel (Lectures on Modern Historj', 162) considers Reuchlin as 
the profouudest philosopher of his age, and one of the originators of the Reforma- 
tion. 



6 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

a fresh impetus was given to tliat trajisformation of society, 
which began when Christianity — the basis of tlie good, per- 
manent, and progressive in modern civilization — first ap- 
peared in tlie world. At that time, social order rested on 
the assumed natural inequality of men. The individual 
was regarded as of value only as he formed a part of the 
political fabric, and was able to contribute to its uses, as 
though it were the end of his being to aggrandize the State.^ 
This was the pagan idea of man. The wisest philosophers 
of antiquity could not rise above it. Its influence imbued 
the pagan world. The State regarded as of paramount im- 
portance, not the man, but the citizen whose physical and 
intellectual forces it absorbed. If this tended to foster 
lofty civic virtues and splendid individual culture in the 
classes whom the State selected as the recipients of its 
favors, it bore hard on those whom the State virtually 
ignored, — on laboring men, mechanics, the poor, captives 
in war, slaves, and woman. This low view of man was 
exerting its full influence when Rome was at the height 
of its power and glory. Christianity then appeared with its 
central doctrine, that man was created in the Divine image, 
and destined for immortality ; pronouncing, that, in the 
/ eye of God, all men are equal. This asserted for the indi- 
vidual an independent value. It occasioned the great in- 
ference, that man is superior to the State, which ought to 
be fashioned for his use. This was the advent of a new 
spirit and a new power in the world. The struggle between 
the pagan and Christian elements was severe. In four cen- 
turies, civil society was transformed from the pagan basis to 
that of Christianity .2 But, long after Rome had crumbled, 



1 Draper (Intellectual Development in Europe, 198) remarks, that " Rome never 
considered man as an individual, but onl^' as a thing." He sa3's (117), •' Plato 
insists, that men sire to be considered, not as men, but as elements of the State, — 
a i)erfect subject, differing from a slave only in this, that he has the State for his 
master." 

2 Essai Historique sur la Soci(5t^ Civile dans le Monde Romain et sur sa 
Transformation par le Cliristianisme, par C. Schmidt. Strasbourg, 1853. The 



LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT AND NATIONAL UNION. 7 

the influence of Paganism, under various forms, continued 
to operate ; and especially the idea, that man was made for 
the State, the office of which, or of a divine right vested 
in one, or in a privileged few, was to fashion the thought 
and control the action of the many. Its embodiment in 
arbitrary power, both in ecclesiastical and political affairs, 
continued to oppress and benumb the human intellect, until 
the Reformation roused a spirit of activity in the bosom 
of the Church. 

The new life thus started in the domain of religion soon 
communicated itself to other provinces. The new powers 
then called into exercise reached forth to other and wider 
fields. The horizon was expanded in every direction ; 
and, as iut^uiry extended, whatever bore on civil society, 
its constitution and improvement, became the subject of 
universal attention. ^ There then rose, above the low level 
of a corrupt political world, a class of thinkers wlio grasped 
the idea that the State ought to exist for man ; that justice, 
protection, and the common good, ought to be the aim 
of government. George Buchanan, of Scotland, of noble 
personal character, renowned for profound learning, and of 
large capacity for affairs of state, in his " De Jure Regiii," 
held that kings derived their power from the people, who 
liad an inherent right to reclaim the power which they dele- 



statements in this paragraph relating to Paganism and Christianity are made on 
this authority. Tliis work is divided into three parts or books. Book i. is entitled 
" La Societe Oivile Palenne." Its presents an elaborate view of the morale of ancient 
society, in which social order rested on the assumed natural inequality of man, and 
lii-s subservienc}' to the State; and the effects of this pagan idea of man are traced 
on the family, the laboring classes, the poor, the unfortunate, presenting a picture 
of the terrible social condition of the pagan world. Book ii. is entitled '• La Society 
Keligieuse Chri'tienne," whicli states the fundamental doctrine of Christianity, and 
the effect of the application of the Christian spirit of love on the various relations of 
life, or on the classes described under the influence of the pagan spirit. Boi'k iii. is 
entitled " Transformation de la Soci(''te Civile par I'lnfluence de I'Esprit Chretien." 
It describes the nature of the struggles, during the first four centuries of the Christian 
em, between the Christian iind the pagan ideas; showing hi'W the ancient maxims 
and Roman laws were transformed, and society imbued with the spirit of the new 
religion. The work is entirely historical. 

1 Heeren's Political Consequences of the Reformation, 283. 



8 THE EISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

gated ; and lie enforced the principles of liberty and the 
maxims of a free government with an energy and fidelity 
which had been equalled in no former age.^ In France, 
Hubert Lanquet, of kindred spirit and public virtue, touched 
by the injustice of arbitrary power, put forth a noble vindi- 
cation of the right of the people to be free from the practices 
of tyranny. Others in France issued, at this period, pro- 
ductions in a similar spirit.^ But the time had not ripened 
for a reception of their doctrines. Half a century had 
hardly passed, before champions of this school illumine the 
political horizon of England. Among them were John Mil- 
ton, imbued with the very spirit of the Reformation, who de- 
fended the noble thesis, that freedom is the native right of 
man, and gave the world a mighty and still unsurpassed plea 
for liberty of utterance ; John Locke, who urged that this 
idea ought to be embodied into the framework of society for 

1 The " De Jure Regni"-vvas first printed in 1579, when, Bayle says (Article Bu- 
chanan), it made a great noise. The article contains curious matter about it. In 
HoUis's "Memoirs" (549) nre enumei'iited the editions. They were many. In 1584, 
the Scotch Parliament condemned and prohibited it. Clarendon, on the Restoration 
of Charles II , ordered all copies to be seized as pernicious to monarcliy (Camp- 
bell's Lord Chancellors, iv. 1.33). Sir James Mackintosh (Work-', 609) warmly 
eulogizes the " De Jure Eegni " in the words cited in the text. The Earl of Chat- 
ham (Ciirrespondeoce, iv 286) regarded it as a volume small in bulk, but big in 
matter, contiuning " even all the length and breadth and depth and height of that 
great argument, which the first geniuses and master-spirits of the human race have 
asserted so nobly. From him, ceu fmite perenni, thej' have all drunk, and happiest 
who has drunk the deepest." 

2 Bayle lias an elaborate dissertation on the authorship of that work, which he 
states was printed in Latin in 1579, and ascribed to '' Stephanus Junius Brutus." 
In HoUis's " Memoirs " (129) there is additional matter about it. The author seems 
not to have seen the edition translated into French. This is in the Boston Public 
Library. Its title is as follows: " De la Pvissance Legitime dv Prince svr le Pevple, 
et du peuple sur le Prince. Traits tres-vtile & digne de lecture en ce temps, escrit en 
Latin par Estiene lunius Brutus, & nnuuellement traduit en Francois. M D LXXXI." 
It was, in tlie next century, translated into English from " the Latin and French." 
HoUis had a head of Lanquet engraved, which is one of the plates in his Jlemoirs 
The other works referred to in tlie text were the " Franco-Gallia : or an account ot 
the ancient free state of France and most other parts of Europe, before the Loss of 
their Liberties." as the title reads in an English edition. It was originally written 
in Latin, and printed in 1574; and •' Le Conti"un, ou Discours de la Servitude 
Voluntaire," by Stephen de la Boetie, printed in 1578. It is pervaded by a noble 
patriotism; and Hallam (Literature, i. -307) .says, "La Boetie, in fact, is almost 
a single instance of a thoroughly republican character till nearly the revolution." 



LOCAL SELF^OVERNMENT AND NATIONAL UNION. 9 

the common good ; and Algernon Sidney, the honest repub- 
lican, who foreshadowed the institutional form in which this 
idea was destined to develop. Locke was so successful in 
catching and expressing the liberal spirit of his age, in his 
work on Civil Government, that it became the platform of a 
great political party, and gradually widened out into an 
influence that operated far beyond the tliought or the theory 
of its adherents ; so that, Hallam says, " while silently 
spreading its fibres from its roots over Europe and America, 
it prepared the way for theories of society hardly bolder in 
their announcement, but expressed with more passionate 
ardor, from which the last and present age have sprung." i 
This historical judgment is applicable to a line of illustrious 
characters, who grasped the Christian idea of man ; and, 
because of the brilliancy of their service in behalf of 
human rights, they deserve a place among the morning 
stars of the American constellation. 

This was the nature of the providential preparation that 
was made in the Old World for the great work of occupying 
North America. When new political ideas were stirring 
the public mind, and a band, of popular leaders, consciously 
or unconsciously, were developing, in perilous political action 
in England, the republican element, several powers made 
grants of territory to companies and individuals who had 
in view the object of planting colonies. After the New 
World had been made known by Columbus and his suc- 
cessors, it was agreed by the principal nations, that prior 
discovery by any of them should constitute valid claim to 
territory in it ; and that grants from them should con- 
stitute absolute title to the soil, subject, however, to the 
Indian riglit of occupancy. It became also a rule of law, 
that the crown only had the right to extinguish this claim. 
Hence the validity of land-titles, traced back to grants by the 

1 Hallanrs Literature, ii. 362. The work of Locke was several times reprinted 
in the Colonies; and the citations from it in political utterances show that it was 
carefuilv studied bv Americans. 



10 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

crown, lias never been denied in tlio courts. Under these 
grants, the soil began to be occupied by the settlers. ^ 

The migrations that heretofore had changed the face of 
society had been tribal in their character: but the migra- 
tion to the New World was individual ; and, with the single 
exceptio;i of the case of Georgia, was effected without any 
expense to the government, and sometimes even in defiance 
of its wishes and decrees. In this way, a few Lowland 
Scotch settled in several places ; the persecuted Hugue- 
nots of France became, in small numbers, exiles in Massa- 
chusetts, and in greater numbers in South Carolma ; the 
Swedes occupied the banks of the Delaware, and the Dntch 
founded New Netherland. A great majority of the emi- 
grants were of the Teutonic stock, — famed for valor, 
personal independence, and a love of free institutions, 
and who welcomed the principle of individuality, roused 
into activity by the Reformation. They are characterized as 
the Germanic race ; a term sufficiently comprehensive to 
embrace the settlers of Saxon, English, and Norman blood, 
and to denote the ancestry of that cosmopolitan result, the 
American race, who are making a broad and deep mark on 
the face of the civilized world.^ 

The colonists, as they bravely encountered the hardships 
of subduing a wilderness, were impelled by various motives, 

1 Chalmers (Political Annals, 677) says, that "the laws of nations sternly dis- 
regarded the possession of the aborigines, because they h;id not been admitted to 
the societ)' of nations." At the Decliiriition of Independence (2 Dallas's Reports, 
470), every acre of land in this countiy was held, mediately or immediately, by 
grants from the crown. All our institutions (Wheaton, viii. 588) recognize the abso- 
lute title of the crown, subject only to the Indian right of occupancy, and recog- 
nize the absolute title of the crown to extinguish that right. An Indian conveyance 
alone could give no title to an individual. 

■^ "The elements of the population of the original thirteen States were almost 
exclusive!}' of English, Lowland Scotch, Dutch, and Swedish blood; that is to say, 
decidedh' Germanic. Ireland was, as yet, slightly represented. France had made 
but inconsiderable contributions to the population." — Hotz's Gobineau, 241. Lnp- 
penberg (England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings, ii. 305), says, that in England, 
before the Conquest, all the then existing nationalities of Europe, the Slavonic 
excepted, met together. The Germanic alone was not remodelled by Roman influ- 
ences, and nowhere has so nobly maintained itself. 



LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT AND NATIONAL UNION. H 

— the emigrants to New England, under tlic main impulse 
of a spirit of religion, by a desire to enjoy in peace their 
mode of worship, and to spread the gospel ; the emigrants to 
Virginia and New York, chiefly under the influence of a 
spirit of commerce, by a love of adventure, or the hope of 
opening new paths of trade ; and the founders of Maryland, 
Pennsylvania, and Georgia, by the ambition to form new 
States ; while all the colonists desired to benefit their condi- 
tion. The majority were zealous sectarians in theology ; 
and, in the spirit of their age, were often narrow in their 
views, and often intolerant in their action : but, whether 
Puritans, as in New England, or Episcopalians, as in Vir- 
ginia, or Catholics, as in Maryland, or Quakers, as in Penn- 
sylvania, they, in political things, manifested a common 
love of liberty. And they spontaneously obeyed the same 
historic traditions and instinctive tendencies, as they organ- 
ized into bodies politic. They ignored the old political 
forms of the places in which they were born, and applied 
free principles in a way and to an extent unlike any thing 
seen in the ancient time or in their own age. Each com- 
munity adopted the rule that the majority should govern, 
representation, the elective franchise, the municipality, the 
public meeting, the general assembly, trial by jury and the 
habeas corpus, — in a word, self-government in the local 
spheres. Thus, in about a century and a quarter (1607 to 
1732), there were planted on this soil the language, man- 
ners, ideas, and religion, the institutions and their tenden- 
cies, that characterize the nation. 

The polity of the United States is original and peculiar. 
It is obviously made up of two great elements or divisions 
of power, — that of the States and of the nation; and the 
beginnings of these are as obviously found in the colonies 
and their union. The motto on the seal of the United 
States gives the genealogy, — E Pluribus Unum.^ The cir- 

1 The motto " E Pluribus Unuin" was on the titlepage of the first volume of 
"The Gentleman's JIagazine," 1731, and was continued until 1834. 



V 



12 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

cumstances connected witli the origin of each one of tlie 
many satisfactorily explain why there were colonies and 
now are States, unequal in size, population, wealth, and 
political weight. Thus a company of Englishmen obtained 
of the sovereignty a grant of the small tract of land which 
is now Rhode Island, and hence the colony and State ; a 
company of Hollanders founded New Netherland, and hence 
there is now a State of the distinctness of character, the 
commercial greatness and imperial power of New York ; 
while, in relation to certain vital things, both States are 
recognized as co-equals in the national polity. But, in the 
general progress and development of civilization, there is 
ever a providential ordering of events, superior to and the 
master of circumstances. This moves on through tlie work- 
ing of great ideas, or the hidden forces, which, joined with 
climate and soil, mould society and direct its tendencies. 
These ideas were fulfilling their mission when theories of 
vital consequence to the human race, pronounced in the Old 
World Utopian, were carried out in the Ne\\' World, and 
their influence fixed society on a new basis.^ Indications 
of their presence are seen at every step of progress. The 
preamble to an early American Bill of Rights runs, " The 
free fruition of such liberties, immunities, and privileges as 
humanity, civility, and Christianity call for, as due to every 
man, in his place and proportion, without impeachment or 
infringement, hath ever been, and ever will be, the tran- 
quillity and stability of churches and commonwealths ; and 
the denial or deprival thereof, the disturbance, if not the 
ruin of both." ^ Here is seen, in the early American law- 
makers, the influence of the Christian element. The legis- 
lation of several of the colonies, establishing a system of 

1 "In tluit land the great experiment was to be made by civilized man of ihe 
attempt to construct society on a new basis; and it was there, for the first time, that 
theories liitlierto unknown, or deemed impracticable, were to exhibit a spectacle for 
which the world had not been prepared by the history of the past.' — De Tocqub- 
VII.lk: Democrar.?/ in America, i 30 

2 Preamble to Massachusetts Liberties, 1641. 



LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT AND NATIONAL UNION. 13 

public instruction for youth, shows the high aim of basing 
commonwealths on intelligence, or on the general education 
of the people. On viewing this class of facts, in connection 
with tlie results that have been attained, a philosophic in- 
quirer, penetrating beneath tlie incidental and transient 
elements of error and of wrong, which, in American history, 
as in other histories, are mingled with the progress of 
Truth and the Right, declares that the grand maxim on which 
civil and political society in the United States rests is, " that 
Providence has given to every human being the degree of 
reason necessary to direct himself in the affairs which in- 
terest him exclusively." ^ After the people had been trained 
for a century and a half in the exercise of these powers in 
purely local spheres, there rose at length, as the product of 
rare public virtue, and to supply the needs of the nation, 
the polity of a republican government based on the prin- 
ciple of the sovereignty of the people. 

To account for the general progress of civilization and 
development, or for the action of great ideas on society, in- 
volves a consideration of profound questions. I do not pur- 
pose to study the Why of the E Plwibus Ununi; but an 
order of facts that seem to show the How it came to pass, — 
a class of ever.ts that mark the continuous blending of 
Diversity and Unity in the formation of the public opinion, 
that evolved The One from the many ; or, how the United 
States came to be the United States, free from the benumb- 
ing influences of centralization on the one hand, and from 
the fatal dangers of disintegration on the other. 

At every stage in the progress towards this result, the 
two main elements of the national life are found acting in 
liarmony. It may be useful to preface the narrative by a 
glance at the origin and progress of the Idea of Local Self- 
Government, which developed into the State, and at the Idea 
of Union, which developed into the nation. 

1 De Tocqueville: Democracy in America, i. 538. 



14 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

1. Local Self-government. — The self-government wliicli 
developed and is recognized in the Repnblic is not simply 
a custom, in the units termed municipalities or States, of 
managing their local affairs ; but a degree of freedom in the 
individual to engage in the various pursuits of life, unrec- 
ognized elsewhere at the period when the Republic was 
formed, and yet unknown where centralization prevails,^ 
whether he chooses to act by himself or in association for 
civil or religious purposes ; and this self-government exists 
in union with the fulfilment of every obligation demanded 
by the nation. The theme in liand, however, requires 
references to institutions of a purely political nature. The 
idea of Local Self-government was historical at the time of 
the colonization of North America. Among the Germanic 
ancestors of the emigrants, the custom was so general 
for the inhabitants of a district to control their local affairs, 
that it has been said, " One leading principle pervaded the 
primeval polity of the Goths : where the law was adminis- 
tered, the law was made;"^ and they filled all Europe for 
five hundred years with the fame of their exploits, and 
were the first nation beyond the Danube to receive Chris- 
tianity.^ Li ancient England, local self-government is found 
in connection with the political and territorial divisions of 
ty things, hundreds, burghs, counties, and shires, in which 
the body of the inhabitants had a voice in managing their 
own affairs. Hence it was the germinal idea of the Anglo- 
Saxon polity. Li the course of events, the crown deprived 
the body of the people of tliis power of local rule, and vested 

1 M. de Champagny (Dublin Review, April, 1866) says of France, "We were 
and are unable to go from Paris to Neuilly; or dine more than twenty together; or 
have in our portmanteau three copies of the same tract ; or lend a book to a friend ; 
or put a patch of mortar on our own house, if it stands in the street; or kill a par- 
tridge; or plant a tree near the road-side; or take coal out of our own land; or 
teach three or four children to read, . . . without permission fi'om the civil govern- 
ment." 

2 Edinburgh Review, February, 1822. This article has much curious matter 
about municipalities. 

8 Encyclopajdia Americana, Article Goths. 



LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT AND NATIONAL UNION, 15 

it in a small number of persons in each locality, who were 
called municipal councils, were clothed witli the power of 
filling vacancies in their number, and were thus self-per- 
petuating bodies. In this way, the ancient freedom of the 
municipalities was undermined, and the power of the ruling 
classes was installed in its place. ^ Such was the nature 
of the local self-government in England, not merely during 
the period of the planting of her American colonies (1607 
to 1732), but for a century later; and it was the same in 
other countries. It was a noble form robbed of its life- 
giving spirit. 

It has been said by Guizot, that, " when there scarcely 
remained traces of popular assemblies, the remembrance of 
them, of the right of freemen to deliberate and transact 
their business together, resided in the minds of men as a 
primitive tradition, and a thing which might come about 
again." ^ These assemblies re-appeared, and old rights were 
again enjoyed, when the emigrants to the soil now the 
United States began to frame the laws under which they 
were to live. An instance of this occurred (1620) on board 
the " Mayflower," as she was bearing the Pilgrims from 
Southampton to Plymouth. Some of the passengers, termed 
strangers, said, that, as tlieir patent did not apply to New 



1 An nrticle in the "Edinburgh Review," September, 1818, on the Burghs of 
Scotland, cites a statute of 1469, which stripped the burgesses everywhere of a fran- 
cliise they liad till then exercised, and formed the basis of the practice there by 
which the town-council and magistracy choose their own successors. J. Toum- 
lin Smith (Local Self-government, 107) says, "Henry VIII. began a systematic 
attack on the independence of borough institutions of local self-government, which 
his successors carefully followed up. This was done, by trying to get the controlling 
authority into the hands of small and select bodies in each borough." In Switzer- 
land (De Tocqucville, Democrac}^ ii. 448), "all powers of government were in 
the hands of small, close aristocracies perpetuating themselves." The ancient free 
municipal life of Frnnce had been extinguished. — M. de Malcsherbes, cited bj 
Da Tocqneville, ii. 428. Gerviiius (Introduction to a History of the Nineteenth 
Century, 40) says of the Republic of the Netherlands, " that power fell into the 
hands >>f a narrow aristocracy, and that there was no thought of a representation of 
the citizens, of democratic institutions, or of the elective franchise for the commu- 
nity." 

2 History of Civilization, iii. 199. 



16 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

England, there Avoiilcl be no authority to exercise powers of 
government ; and, when they got on shore, they would use 
their own liberty. To curb this riotous spirit, forty-one of 
the band, when at Cape Cod, signed the well-known cove- 
nant, by which they mutually and solemnly combined them- 
selves into a " civil body politic," for the better ordering 
and preservation of their object, and by virtue thereof to 
frame, enact, and obey such just and equal laws as from 
time to time should be thought most meet and convenient 
for the general good of the colony: in the expectation that 
this form of government might be as firm as any patent, and 
in some respects more sure. They declared that their en- 
terprise was undertaken for the glory of God, for the advance 
of the Christian faith, and for the honor of their king and 
country.^ This was a covena*nt to provide a code of laws 
and a public authority, or a local government, not in the 
spirit of sovereignty, but of subordination to it, or as loyal 
subjects of the king.^ 

An old custom ais© re-appeared in all the colonies, in the 
provisions for a discharge of municipal duties. The begin- 
nings of the Massachusetts colony afford pertinent illustra- 
tions of the formative process. The company, as proprietors 
of the soil, granted to the several bands of settlers tracts of 
land to build towns upon, but at first made no special provi- 
sion for municipal governments. These persons met in one 
body, or in town-meeting, or in folk-mote, to lay out high- 
ways, to parcel out house-lots, and to order the petty details 
of local life. But, as their numbers increased and duties 
multiplied, these frequent gatherings of the whole body 
became an onerous tax on their time, as " by reason of 
many men meeting, things were not easily brought unto a 
joint issue." ^ To remedy a growing evil, the inhabitants 

1 Bradford's History, edited by Deane, 89, 90. 

2 A different view of this proceeding has been given. Thus Benedict (Histori- 
cal Discourse, 10) says, "The Pilf^rims took the form of a nation, and assumed 
and exercised its various functions," &c. 

8 Flistory of Charlestown, 51. 



LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT AND NATIONAL UNION. 17 

of Dorcliester (1633) designated twelve of their number to 
meet once a week, to consider local matters, but they were 
to have no greater voice in determining a case than any 
inhabitants who might choose to meet with them. The plan, 
however, did not work well.^ The inhabitants of Charlestown, 
in inaugurating another plan, selected the mode adopted in 
the " Mayflower." Tiiey signed an histriiment, still ex- 
tant, which is entitled on their records, " An order for the 
government of the town by selectmen," by which eleven 
persons, " with the advice of pastor and teacher, in any case 
of conscience," were empowered to manage their local 
aflhirs for a year, the choice of officers excepted. ^ This 
plan proved successful. It was an application of the prin- 
ciple, that the body of the residents of a district should 
control its local affairs. 

Another instance of the re-appearance of an ancient ^ 
right is afforded in the spontaneous application, by the 
emigrants, of the principle of representation, which was 
quite unknown in the Grecian and Roman world, was in 
England rather used by the ruling classes to wield power 
than enjoyed by the body of the people, and had well nigh 
disa})peared on the European continent. This principle 
was first applied by the settlers of Virginia, wlio for several 
years had no voice in making the laws under w^hich they 
lived, but were ruled under authority derived from the 
crown. Arbitrary power produced confusion and discon 
tent. In 1619, the governor, to the great joy of the people, 
was empowered to summon representatives. And each of 
the eleven incorporations and plantations chose two of their 
number to act as burgesses, and take part in making the 
laws. They convened in the church at James City, on the 
30th of July, 'i The officers of the colony met with them, V 

1 Vote of 1633 in Dorchester Records. 

2 History of Charlestown, 5L Professor Joel Parker, in a paper on New-Eng- 
land towns, in "Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings," 1866-7, regards tlie proceeding as 
sliowing the beginning of this form of municipal government. 

2 



v.. 
>' 



18 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

the governor sitting in his accustomed place, his council 
on each side, and in front of him the speaker and clerk, 
while the sergeant stood at the bar. The burgesses took 
their places '" in the choir of the clmrch." The minister 
then prayed that it might please God to guide and sanctify 
their proceedings to his own glory and the good of the 
plantation. The burgesses then retired to the body of the 
church ; wben, " to the intent," the speaker says, " as we had 
begun with God Almighty, we might proceed with awful 
and due respect to his lieutenant, our most gracious and 
dread sovereign," all were called by name and in order, 
took the oath of supremacy, and then entered the assembly. 
Among its proceedings were measures towards the educa- 
tion of Indian children, and the erection of " a university or 
college." Thus solemn was the inauguration of the repre- 
sentative principle on this continent.^ This was the origin 
of tlie House of Burgesses of Virginia, — an example. Story 
says, of a domestic parliament to regulate all the internal 
concerns of the colony that " was never lost sight of, but 
was ever afterwards cherished throughout America as the 
dearest birthright of freemen." ^ All the colonies, sooner 
or later after their foundation, had their legislative assem- 
blies, which came to be called the commons of America. 
These assemblies were the judges of the elections and 
returns of their own members, regulated the manner of 
transacting their own business, and claimed to be free 
deliberative bodies. In union with the co-ordinate branches 
of a council and a governor, they were the law-making 
power.2 

1 Proceedings of the First Assembly of Virginia. 

2 Story's Commentaries, i. 26. 

8 Bancroft (i. 250) remarks, that "popular assemblies burst everywhere into life 
with a consciousness of their importance and an immediate capacity for efficient 
legislation." These assemblies, in some cases, at first were composed of the whole 
body of freemen./ The dates of the formation of representative assemblies to make 
laws in the colonies are as follows: — 

Virginia, July 30, 1619. — The goverror summoned two burgesses from three 
cities, three hundreds, three plintations, Arguls gift, and Kiccowtau. — Proceedings 



LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT AND NATIONAL UNION. 19 

The representatives, with the governor and council, con- 
stituted the government for the colony, or of the people as 
a unit. This was held to be the only power that could levy 

in New-York Hist. Soc, Coll. 2d ser. Ill, communicated by Bancroft in 1856. The 
governor, council, and burgesses continued to meet togetlier, Beverly saj-s (Hist. 
\'a. b. iv. 31), till 1080, when " Lord Colepepper, taking advantage of some disputes 
among them, procured the council to sit apart from the assembly ; and so they be- 
came two di>tinct houses, in imitation of the two Houses of Parliament in England, 
— the Lords and Commons, — and so is the Constitution at this (1705) day." 

Maiisachusetts, May 14, 1(534 — To the surprise of the magistrates, twentj'-fivo 
delegates, chosen by the freemen of the towns, of their own motion, appeared and 
claimed a share in making the laws. The claim was iillowed, and their names 
appear on the records of the daj', with the m^igistrates, as part of the General 
Court. They sat together for ten years. In 1644, the " Massachusetts Records " say 
(i 58), Ln account "of divers inconveniences" of the magistrates and deputies sit- 
ting together, and " accounting it wisdom to follow the laudable practice of other 
States, who have laid groundworks for government," it was ordered — both sitting 
together — that each should sit iip;irt; and they became co-ordinate and co-equal 
branches, the assent of both being necessary to make a law. Plymouth had a repre- 
Bcntative assembly in 1639. Tlie charteV of 1092 named twenty-eight persons as 
coun>-ellors: afterwards they were ciiosen annually by a joint vote of a new House of 
Representatives and the old counsellors. 

Connecticut, Jan. 14, 1639 — An agreement among the towns to be as " one public 
State or commonwealth," provided for a representative assembly', consisting of depu- 
ties chosen by the freemen, who, with a governor and council, composed the legisla- 
tive power. They sat together. The charter of 1662 provided, that the governor, 
deputy-governor, and twelve magistrates should be chosen at a general election, and 
deputies should be cliosen by the towns. All these ofiicers sat together. In 1098, 
it was ordered that the governor or deputy- governor and magistrates should be 
called the upper house, and the deputies the lower house, tliMt they should sit apart, 
and tliat no bill become a law without the consent of both. — Trumbidl's Connecti- 
cut, i 102, 399. 

Mar\'land, February, 1G39. — An assembly of the body of freetnen made provision 
for a representative assembly (Chalmers's Annals, 213). The composition of this 
body was peculiar. Griffith (]\laiyland, 7) says, that, '' upon wri's being issued 
by the governor, delegates elected by the freehien were to sit as burgesses, one or 
two for each hundred, with the persons especially called by the governor, and such 
freemen as had not consented to the election of others, or any tw-elve or more of 
them, including always the governor and secretary" The burgesses (Chalmers, 
219) desired, in 1642, to sit by themselves; and, in 1650 (Griffith, 13), the as.sembly 
passed an act dividing themselves into two houses; the governor and secretary and 
council to be the upper house, and the burgesses the lower house; and all bills 
assented to by the major part of either to be the laws. 

Rhode Island, May, 1647. — Provision was made under the patent or charter, 
granted in 1644 by the Parli:imentary Commission, for a representation from the 
towns, which discussed proposed laws before they were presented to a general assem- 
bly. — Arnold's Rhode Island, i. 203. By the charter of 1663, a governor, deputy- 
governor, and assistants were to be chosen annually at Newport ; and deputies were 
to bo chosen bj- each town. At first, all sat in one room. In 1666, there was ao 



20 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

taxes. It was earl}' urged, that the inhabitants of a colony 
were the best informed of its circumstances, and therefore 
were the most qualified to make its laws : in the words of 

)< effort to have the deputies sit as a separate house ; but the measure was not adopted 
till 1696. — Arnold, 327, 533. The governor and assistants, or magistrates, were 
the upper house; the deputies, the lower house. 

North Carolina, 1667. — Settlers were invited into this colony by the promise of 
legislative freedom. — Willisimson, i. 94. Hawks (i. 144) thinks there was an assem- 
bly in 1666; but the general assembly, under the charter, consisted of the governor, 
twelve councillors, and twelve delegates, chosen by the freeholders. — Chalmers, 524. 
At a later period, while under proprietary rule (Hawks, ii. 147), the general assembly 
was divided into two houses. 

New Jersey, 1668. — This proprietary colony was divided at first into East Jersey 
and West Jersey, which had separate assemblies: the first held in East Jersey was 
on May 26, 1668, and in West Jerse}', Nov. 25, 1681. — Gordon's New Jersey, 44-48. 
In 1702, the two parts were united, a roj'al government formed, and a general 
assembl_y provided for, consisting of the governor, a council of twelve nominated by 
the king, and a house of representatives chosen by the freemen of the counties and 
cities. The}' sat together. In 1738, the council was made a separate branch ; the 
governor withdrew from it, and no longer was tlie presiding ofiicer. — Mulford'3 
New Jersey, 335. 

South Carolina, 1674. — Settlers were promised a share in making the laws. — 
Ramsay's South Carolina, i. 30. In 1674, the freemen elected representatives, 
when, Ramsay says, there were (ib. i. 35) "the governor, iind upper and lower 
houses of assembly; and these three branches took the name of parliament." The 
colon}' became, in 1720, a royal government; it was settled that the governor and 
council be appointed by the king, and the representatives be chosen by the people. 
The whole house was chosen at Charleston, where " there had been often great 
tumults." — Carroll, ii. 149. About 1716, the colony was divided into parishes; and 
it was provided that each parish should elect its representatives, ''to be balloted for 
at the several parish churches, or some other convenient place mentioned in the 
writs, which were to be directed to the church-wardens, nnd they to make returns 
of the elected members; and of this act the people were very fond, finding it gave 
them a greater freedom of election." — Ib. ii. 149. In 1720, when the colony became 
a royal government, it was provided that the governor 'and council should be ap- 
pointed by the king, and the representatives chosen by the people — Ramsay, i. 95. 

New Hampsliire, JIarch 16, 1680. — By the decision of the crown. New Hamp- 
shire was separated from Massachusetts, and a commission constituted a president 
and council ''to govern the province;" and this commission authorized tlie quali- 
fied voters of the four towns to choose an assembly. It consisted of eleven depu- 
ties, and sat as a distinct bod}'; the council having a negative on its acts. The king 
engaged to " continue the privilege of an assembly in the same manner and form, 
unless he should see cause to alter the same." A Royal Commission, in 1692, pro- 
vided for a governor and council, and a house of representatives, to be elected by 
the towns ; both meeting separately, and acting as co-ordinate branches. — Belknap, 
i. 139, 145. 

Pennsylvania, 1682 — In this colony, provision was made for a representative 
assembly mider the Frame of Government of 1682 ; and also under forms tried in 
1683 and 1696. In 1701, the charter agreed upon provided for an annual assembly 



LOCAL SELF-r.OVERNMENT AND NATIONAL UNION. 21 

an early assonibly, " that there was more likelihood that 
such as were acquainted with the clime and the accidents 
thereof might on better grounds prescribe their advan- . 
tages " than " such as should sit at the helm" in England. 
This theory was applied to the smaller spheres of political 
power. It was considered, that the inhabitants of a district 
or town could act more intelligently in reference to its 
affairs than any others.-' It also became a leading aim to 
carry justice to their doors.^ On these grounds, the legis- 
latnres provided for the exercise by localities of certain 

to consist of four delcgjates from each county, or a greater number, if the governor 
and assembly should agree to it. This assembly was to choose a speaker and other 
officers, "to be judges of the qualifications and elections of their own members, sit 
upon their own adjournments, appoint committees, prepare bills, impeach criminals, 
and redress grievances, with all other powers and privileges of assembly, according 
to the rights of the free-born subjects of England, nnd the customs in any of the 
Queen's plantations in America." — Franklin's Works, iii. 155. In this colony 
(Douglass's Summary, ii. 317), the council had no concern in the legislation other- 
wise than advising the governor. The legislature had but one branch. 

Delaware, 1682. — This colony became a dependency on New York, but was pur- 
chased by William Penn. The three lower counties of the Delaware, New Castle, 
Kent, and Sussex, claimed, under the charter of 1681, a separate assembly, which 
they obtained, but had the same executive as Penns3'lvania. 

New York, Oct. 17, 168.3. — The governor called an assembly, composed of seven- 
teen delegates, who adopted a charter of liberties, apportioned the representatives to 
the counties, and claimed to be a free assembly. — Dunlap's New York, i. 134. 
In 1691, the first assembly convened after the Revolution, and consisted of seventeen 
delegates. The acts of this assembh' are the first that were considered valid b}' the 
courts of law. — Smith's New York, 87. The assembly, down to the Revolution, 
did not exceed twenty-seven members. — Dunlap's New York, i. 212. The coun- 
cil consisted of twelve, nominated by the crown, as was the governor, and sat by 
themselves. 

Georgia, 1754. — The first representative assembly was called by the governor, 
under a form of government matured by the Board of Trade, and authorized by the 
king. It was composed of nineteen delegates from three districts, and {JMcCall's 
Georgia, i. 248) had power similar to other colonial assetnblies. 

1 The General Assembly of Virginia, in Fehruarj', 1632, passed the following 
order: "That the governor and council shall not lay any taxes or impositions upon 
the colony, their land, or commodities, otherwise than by the authority of the Grand 
Assembly, to be levied and employed as bj- the assembly shall be appointed." — 
Hening's Statutes,!. 171. At the first meeting (May 14, 1631) of the rcpresenta- 
tivce in ^Ias.eachusetts, it was voted, the governor and assistants, as in Virginin, 
Rifting with them, " That none but the General Court hath power to make and estab- 
lishe lawes," or " to raise moneyes and taxes" — Mass. Records, i. 117. Declaration 
of the General Assembly of Virginia, 1642, in Hening, i. 233. 

2 Hening's Preface, xvii. 



X. 



22 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

functions, involving the taxing power, vital to the peace and 
welfare of society. The forms adopted were necessarily dif- 
ferent. The influences growing out of climate and soil, in 
union with ideas, created conditions of society, and their 
tendencies, which, subsequent to the Revolution, grew into 
momentous results. The legislation of all the colonies rec- 
o.iiuized human bondage, and its subjects were the Afiican 
race. In the territory of Pennsylvania, and north of it, 
this race did not multiply largely. Industrial pursuits 
were carried on mainly by free labor, and the emigrants 
built their liouses near each other, and organized towns. 
In the region south of Pennsylvania, the emigrants settled 
far apart from each other, on large tracts of land or planta- 
tions. The climate suited the African race, and they greatly 
mcreased. The cultivation of the great staples of indigo, 
rice, and tobacco was carried on mainly by slave labor. It 
has been said, that " this single circumstance had such an 
influence that it divided the thirteen colonies into two dis- 
tinct communities, which widely differed in manners, habits 
of life, and general cliaracter." ^ The municipal forms that 
were adapted to one condition of society were impracticable 
in the other. But whether the municipality was called 
parish, borough, town, city, district, or county, the principle 
was alike recognized, that the body of its residents, accord- 
ing to prescribed rules, should manage their own local 
affairs.^ In each the voters chose their own officers ; each 



1 Tucker's Hist. United States, i. 97. 

2 " Municipal, as used by the Romans, originally designated that which pertains 
to a municipimn, or free city or town." — Webster's Dictionary. This term will denote 
all the forms by which the supreme power in a community, as a colony or State, 
empowers the residents of a district to perform certain duties. 

In Virginia, the divisions named in 1619, in the election of the first representative 
body, were cities, hundreds, and plantations; but the prevailing form came to be 
counties and parishes. Thus, in 1656, all the counties, "not yet laid out into par- 
ishes," were ordered to be so laid out. IMarj'land, in 1702, had about forty parishes; 
the settlements in South Carolina were so scattered, that, for ninety-nine years, 
Charleston was the centre and source of judicial power (Ramsi'.y's South Carolina, 
ii. 125, 129); and about 1716 (Carroll, ii. 149) the colony was divided into par- 
ishes. North Carolina, in 1739, had a population of only ten thousand, and was 



LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT AND NATIONAL UNION. 23 

had its courts of justice ; each, in relation to its peculiar 
local interests, had a jurisdiction as wide as its territorial 
limits. In tliis way, each locality provided for the concerns 
of social comfort and of police, of education and of religion. 
This work was never done for the people, but always by 
them : they tested their own decisions, and could correct 

divided into three counties, and these again into " precincts." Georgia, in 1758, was 
divided into eight parishes. — Wliite's Statistics, 55. The powers conferred on coun- 
ties and parishes were e.ssentially the same in all the Southern colonies. In Vir- 
ginia, in 16.32, the General Assembly ordered that " highways should be laid out in 
such places us were requisite, nccord'ns: as the governor and council, or the commis- 
sioners for the m'^nthly courts, should appoint, or accor ling as the commissioners 
of every parish should agree." V;\rions sicts imposed duties on counties, such as 
budding pr sons. miintMiiiing bridges and highways, erecting workhouses, ;ind placing 
poor children there to be instructed in spinning, ifcc, and paying the burgesses. 
In 1662, the fo'lowing act was passed: "Whereas oftentimes snmc small inconve- 
niences happen in the respective counties and parishes, which cannot well be con- 
cluded in a general law: Be it therefore enacted, that the respective counties, and 
the several parishes in those counties, shall have liberty to make laws for them- 
selves; and those that are so constituted, by the major part of the said counties or 
parishes, to be binding upon them as fiillj' as any other act." — Hening, ii. 171. 
In 1642, an act provided for the formation annually of a vestry in each parish to 
maintain churcli government; and, in 1645, it was enacted, "That the election of 
every vestry be in the power of the mjor part of the parishioners " According 
to these citations, the residents of a district controlled the affairs of a district; the 
Virginia law of 1662 being as complete an embodiment of this principle, where there 
was not a single town, as any law in New England. 

In Pennsvlvanin, with the "Three Lower Countie«," or Delaware, and New -Ter- 
sey, the laws passed in relation to municipal affairs designate counties and towns. 
William Penn granted, as proprietary, the charter of Philadelphia, and this city had 
a self-pcrpetua'iMg council; but as a county it was subject in the general laws to 
the elective principle, and named as such. In 1709, assessors were ordered to be 
chosen bv the freeholders. In an act providing for county rates and levies (1724), 
the fi-eeholders, &c , were empowered to choose, annually, commissioners for three 
years, liaving three for each county (one going out of office each vear), and si.x a^sess- 
oi"8, whose duties relative to taxes are minutely laid down. The oith admini.stcred 
to these officer-* was, " Thou slialt well and trulv cause the cnmty debts to be 
speedily adjusted, a'ld the rates and sums of money by virtue of this act imposed 
to be duly and equally assessed and laid according to the best of thy skill and 
knowledge; and herein thou shalt spare no person for favor or atfi-'ction, nor grieve 
any for hatred or ill-will." — Penn. Laws, 1742. In 1729, the inhabitMnts of town- 
ships, owners or occupiers of lands, were empowered to choose fit persons for pound- 
keepers. The town.ships were empowered to make rates for the support of the poor. 
Tlui« the c'ective principle was gradually extended in this colony in municipal 
affairs. 

Tn New .Terspy. the " Concessions" (1664) of the proprietors to all who should settle 
in it, provide that, "so soon as parishe-=, divisions, tribes, and other distinctions are 
made," the freeholders should elect representatives; and they should "divide the- 



24 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

their own judgments. The municipality was the unit in 
the system of local self-government. In it the citizen began 
to take a part in public affairs, and was trained for the 
wider field of the representative assembly. And thus it 
fostered a public spirit and a public life. What has been 
called a " bureaucracy," which has had so repressive an influ- 

province into hundreds, parishes, or tribes," or other divisions. — Snii*'''': New Jer- 
sey, 514, 515. The divisions named in the laws subsequently passed are counties, 
cities, towns-corporate, townships, and precincts, which were empowered to exercise 
certain rights, immnnitics, and privileges, in which the freeholders and freemen, 
having certam qualifications, voted for tlieir ofHcers at " town-meetings; " some acts 
providing that " only freeholders, tenants for years, or householders " should vote 
in township or precinct meetings. An act of 1710 names nine counties which were 
empowered to exercise certrtin rights and privileges. — New Jersey Laws. 

In New Netherland, the company that effected settlements introduced the self- 
perpetuating councils of the Fatherland. — Brodhead's New York, 475. Such was 
the government of Manhattan in 1647. The popular demands, however, show 
the same Germanic thirst for local self-government in this colonj- that is seen in 
Massachusetts and Virginia and other colonies. After it became an English colony, 
the municipal forms named are county, city, town, parish, manor, and precinct; and 
though the governor appointed the mavors and some other officers of the cities, yet 
even in these the freeholders chose the aldermen; and in the towns and precincts 
the inhabitants chose their officers. Thus the precinct of Goshen, "at their annual 
town-meeting-; for electing town officers," were empowered to elect three '"free- 
holders" to lay out roads in it. — New-York Laws, 212, printed 1772. Towns were 
authorized by town-grants or patents conferring municipal powers. An act (1762) 
creating two precincts authorizes the choice of "one precinct clerk, one supervisor, 
two assessors, one collector, three overseers of the poor, three fence-viewers, one 
pound-master," and also, in certain contingencies, " four constables and six overseers 
of the highways." — Laws, 257 These were to be chosen annually "by the ma- 
jority of the voices of the inhabitants " assembled in town-meeting. 

In JIassachusetts, during the first six years of the colony (1630 to 1636), the Gen- 
eral Court occupied itself with many things of a strictly local character, as the 
support of the ministers, appointment of constables, building of bridges, and matters 
of po'ice; and it appointed (16-32) two persons in each town to confer with itself about 
raising a public stock. Then it ordered each town should supply its inhabitants 
with arms, provide weights and measures, and keep a pound. In the first year there 
were representatives (1634), the General Assembly ordered "that none but freemeu 
should have anj' vote in anj' town in any action of authority or necessit\% or thut 
which belongs to them by virtue of their freedom as receiving inhabitants, laying 
out lots," &c. jMeantime .several towns were exercising certain local offices, af 
establishing schools, supporting the ministers, making rates, building fences, and 
even choosing " selectmen " without ;iny special authorii}' from the colony to do it. 
such as the proceedings in Dorchester and Charlcstown related in the text (see 
page 17). The General Court, on the 3d of March, 1636, passed an important mu- 
nicipal act. The following is a portion of it: "Whereas particular towns have 
many tilings which concern onlj' themselves, and the ordering of their own affairs, 
and disposing of business in their own town, it is therefore ordered, that the free- 



LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT AND NATIONAL UNION. 25 

ence in France, is not seen in a single colony. I do not 
know of the creation, by an American legislature, of such 
an anomaly as a self-perpetuating municipal council. 

The representatives were chosen by the qualified voters. 
The elective franchise, with the object of securing intelli- 
gence and integrity for the public service, was severely 
restricted. The freehold qualification was general, and was 



men of every town, or the major part of them, shall only have power to dispose of 
their own lands and woods, with all the privileges and appurtenances of the said 
towns to grant lots, and make such orders as may concern the well ordering of 
their own towns, not repugnant to the laws and orders here established by the Gen- 
eral Court, as also to hiy mulcts and penalties for the breach of these orders, and to 
levy and distrain the same not exceeding the sum of 20s ; also to choose their own 
particuUir ollicers, as constables, surveyors for the highways and the like; " and the 
order permits two constables for each town, but it does not name the selectmen. 
Some of the towns were now choosing these annually, and they at least were recog- 
nized in legislation. Thus, in 1642 (Records, ii. 4), the court declared "that the 
selected townsmen have power to lay out particular and private ways concerning 
their own town only" (6); that "in everj' town the chosen men, appointed for 
m:inaging the prudential affairs of the town," should liave certain powers over the 
training of children; and, in 1646, that the five or seven or more men, "which are 
seletted for pudential affairs, in certain towns, should have power to end causes 
under 20s. ; " and, in 1647, the term " selectmen " is used in the laws. New powers 
from time to time were conferred on the towns. Thus, Sept. 6, 163S, the General 
Court ordered that every inliabitant " who sha*l not voluntarily contribute propor- 
tionate to his ability with other freemen of the same town to all assessed charges, as 
well for the upholding of the ordinances of the churches as otherwise " (Records, 
i 20), shoul 1 be compelled to do it by taxes, to be levied as in other cases. This 
vital power, wisely or unwisely, idenlified the parish with the town. 

In 1639, riymouth passed a law which enacted that, "All the townships within 
this government, allowed or to be allowed, shall have liberty to meet together and 
to make such town-orders." with power to impose fines under twenty shillings. — 
Plymouth Col. Records, xi. 32. The Connecticut Assembly of 1639 empowered 
the towns of Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield, or any others within their juris- 
diction, each to have powers to dispose of their own lands, to choose their own 
officers, and make such orders as may be for the well ordering of their own towns, 
being not repugnant to any law establi.shed by the assembly; also to impose penal- 
ties for a breach of the same. — Conn. Col. Records, 36-39. The four or seven men 
chosen bj' the towns to conduct their aff.iirs were termed " townsmen." In Rhode 
Island, the inhabitants of Proviilence agreed to be "incorporated into a town fel- 
lowship;" and they managed their own affairs. The General Assembh', under the 
charter, granted, from time to time, acts of incorporation, in which were defined the 
local officers and their duties, such as two wardens and the town council. — Arnold's 
Rliode Island. In New Hampshire, there are seen similar proceedings. The inhabi- 
tants of Exeter, in 1639, signed an agreement " to combine themselves together to 
erect and set up among us such government as should be to their best discerning " 
(Farmer's Belknap, 432); and the inhabitants of Dover (1640) " voluntarily agreed 



26 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

furtlier limited, in some of the colonies, by a pecuniary 
qualification ; and, in three of the New-England colonies, 
church membership was required for the franchise, which 
proved to be so restrictive in Massachusetts as to exclude, 
for thirty years, three-fourths of the male inhabitants from 
the ballot-box. 1 There were, in some of the colonies, laws 
imposing penalties on absentees from town-meetings or 
from elections, — an embodiment of a conviction, that it was 
the duty of all citizens to take a part in the management 
of public aifairs. The law, in some cases, was arbitrary ; 
but the sentiment upon which it was based is sound : for 
whoever declines to take his share of the administration of 
municipal or other public duties, shows that he regards his 
personal ease or the gratification of his tastes as of more 



to combine themselves into a body politic, (hat they might the more comforta- 
bly enjoy the benefit of his majesty's laws, tosrether with such laws as should be con- 
cluded by a major part of the freemen." — lb. 433. 

John Adams (Works, v. 495) points to the to^yns of New England as one of 
the institutions that supply a key to American history, naming, as the chief func- 
tions wliich these qtinsi corporations performed, the making of roads, the support 
of the poor, clioosing their officers, and, "above all, choosing their representatives in 
the legislature, and assembling, as of right, to discuss public affairs." The same 
functions outside of New England, were provided for in the divisions of parish, 
count}', and other forms; and, in the period of the Revolution, the counties of the 
Southern colonies acted in political affairs with a similar efficiency to the towns of 
New England 

I have, in this note, made only such citations as seemed to justify the statements 
made in the text. In all the colonies there is seen the same spirit of local self-gov- 
ernment. 

I have not met with a volume, or even an ess;iy, on the growth of the munici- 
pal system in the United States. Professor Joel Parker contributed to the " Pro- 
ceedings of the Mass Hist. Soc " of 1860-7, a valuable paper entitled " The Origin, 
Organization, and Influence of the Towns of New England." 

^ Church membership was a qualification for voters in Jlassachusetts, New Haven, 
and Connecticut. It was ordered. May 18, 1631, before there was a representative 
body in Massachusetts, " that no man sliould be admitted to this body politic but such 
as are members of some of the churciics within the limits of the same " Tiiis was 
not repealed until Aug 3,1664. — Mass. Records. An act of 1656 (Hening, i 403) 
of the Virginia assembly reads, " Whereas we conceive it something hard and un- 
agreeable to reason, that anj' person shall pay equal taxes, and yet have no votes 
in elections;" therefore it orders thiit the acts excluding freemen from voting for 
burgesses should be repealed: but this colony enacted, in 1670, that none but free- 
holders and householders should vote. In Penn.sylvania, the qualifications were a 
freehold of fifty acres, ten cleared, and other estate of £50. 



LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT AND NATIONAL UNION. 27 

account than the preservation of his rights or the welfare 
of his family, his neighbors, or his country. It is only by 
an active participation in political concerns, that Americans 
can discharge their obligations as members of society. 

The public meeting is seen from the first in the colonies. 
As a means of expressing public opinion, it must be regarded 
as a vital part of self-government. I have met with but 
few allusions to this custom in the statutes. It seems to 
have been assumed as a right, and with it the right of a free 
examination of political questions. An early Massachusetts 
law bears on this custom. It provided, tliat every man, 
whether inhabitant or foreigner, free or not free, should 
have liberty to go to any public court, council, and town- 
meeting ; and, either in speech or writing, prefer any com- 
plaint or present any petition, in reference to subjects of which 
tlie meeting had cognizance, if it were done in convenient 
time, due order, and respectful manner.^ In the public 
meeting, whether summoned by the authorities or called by 
private citizens, whether composed of the body of the peo- 
ple, or of delegates as in conventions, men met on the foot- 
ing of equality, and exercised, as of right, free discussion ; 
and at a time when, in most other countries, the same 
classes were precluded from taking part in public affairs. 
It was a remark, in an early petition of the freemen of 
Charlestown, that the enjoyment of tliese immunities "ren- 
dered them the most happy people they know of in the 
world ;"2 and, at the Revolution, this self-government was 
regarded as an invaluable right, purchased by toil, treasure, 
and blood.^ 

Though old principles were at the base of the munici- 

1 Massachusetts Code of 1641. 

2 A Petition of the Freemen of Charlestown, 1668 (Hist, of Charlestown, 159), 
names ''the free choice of our heads, or rulers," as essential to their freedom, among 
the privileges and immunities they enjoyed. The Virginia Declaration of 1642 
(Honing, i. 231) says, that " the present happiness is exemplified to us by the freedom 
of yearly assemblies," and the '' legal trial by jury in all criminal and civil causes 
when it should be demanded." 

8 Letter of Joseph Warren, March 19, 1766: Life and Times, 21. 



28 THE EISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

pality and the legislature, yet the prominent forms in which 
they were embodied, suggested by the circumstances of the 
condition of the people, were original, and may be termed 
American, Tlie object sought was to supply the wants of 
the people, and promote the common good. The natural 
product of this self-government was a cluster of thirteen 
distinct and essentially free communities, composed of a 
population who appreciated the value of their rights, and 
felt a personal concern in their preservation. They had 
prejudice's against each other, rivalries, and sharply defined 
provincialisms. But, however antagonistical might have 
been special circles of impulses and objects, however dif- 
ferent the tendencies of their social systems, and however 
strongly the law of diversity might have ruled in their 
development for a century and a half, yet, in due time, all 
the colonies fell under the influence of a spirit of imion, 
and each contributed to promote the design of Providence 
in the formation of a great Republic in America. 

II. The Idea of National Union. — An early American 
writer and pioneer states, that the people saw, by daily expe- 
rience in the beginnings of their work, that they could not 
succeed in their undertaking without an agreement with 
one another for mutual assistance ; and tliat they thought the 
colonies would one day be "joined together in one common 
bond of unity and peace." ^ The appreciation of a great 
and vital want will account for the origin of the idea of a 
common union. A study of its embodiment reveals the 
feature of growth. It is so original and peculiar, that it 
may be termed American. 

As the main object of these pages is to trace this de- 
velopment, it would anticipate the narrative to enlarge, in 
this place, on details. 

The first conception of an American Union entertained 
by the founders of New England was to join in political 
bonds only those colonies in which the people were of a 

1 Hubbard's History of New England, 405. He wrote before 1682. 



LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT AND NATIONAL UNION. 29 

similar way of tliinkiiig in tlieology, when, in the spirit of 
a theocracy, tliey aimed to form a Christian State in tlie 
bosom of the Church. This was embodied in the New- 
England Confederacy (1643 to 1684). Its basis was not 
broad enough to embrace the whole of this territory, or 
sufficiently just to include all its population. 

The next tendencies to a union are seen after New Neth- 
erland was added to the dominions of the British crown, 
and was called New York. In the inter-colonial correspond- 
ence that took place, growing out of the Revolution of 1689 
in the colonies, and in the call of a congress, in 1690, for 
the safety of the whole land, there appears the conception 
of union as comprehensive as the colonies. n/ 

Union was continuously suggested during the succeeding 
seventy years (1690 to 1760). The class who urged it from 
an American point of view, and for objects in harmony 
with the free institutions that had taken root, aimed mainly 
at removing the obstructions that rival communities threw 
in the way of progress, and at providing for tlie common de- 
fence. It was urged, that the people who were occupying 
this portion of North America were naturally linked to- 
gether by material interests ; sympathized instinctively with 
free institutions ; and had before them a common destiny, 
and hence ought to be united in a common polity. But 
circumstances prevented the formation of a public opinion in 
favor of the adoption of any of the schemes that were pre- 
sented. The Plan of Union, recommended by a convention 
held at Albany in 1754, was rejected by all the colonies. 

The idea of union received a great impetus when the 
policy was adopted by the cabinet of George III. to govern 
and tax America. This policy involved aggression on the 
old right of self-government. Union was then enjoined 
upon the colonies by the popular leaders, as the sum of 
American politics ; the demand of the hour, to promote 
social, political, and national well-being ; the path of duty 
and of honor ; the way pointed out by Providence to suo- 



\/ 



30 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

cessfiilly resist aggression, and to obtain a redress of griev- 
ances. The sentiment deepened into conviction, and this 
rijDencd into faith in its practicability. It was the religion of 
politics. Union became a fact, and had the moral force 
of unwritten law. Under its rule and inspiration, a rare 
and rich public life rose into great political action, through 
an efficient party organization. At length Thirteen United 
Colonies stood (1774) in the attitude of armed resistance 
to the measures of the ministry ; and, in the spirit in which 
the Great Charter was wrung from King John, they de- 
manded their liberties under the British Constitution. In 
this situation, American society, imbued with the germinal 
spirit and influence of the doctrine of freedom and equality, 
claimed tlie right to hold on to what it had gained and the 
right of progress for the Future. 

Union had been urged, up to this time, by the colonies, not 
merely in the spirit of allegiance to the crown, but with 
feelings of pride in being parts of a great empire ; but their 
attitude was pronounced from the throne to be rebellion, and 
the force of the nation was summoned to suppress it. This 
was an assertion, based upon the Past of Absolutism and 
Privilege, of a right to give the local law to America. This 
forced the popular party to accept the situation of revolu- 
tion, and to aim at the object of separation. There was 
then grafted on and blended with the conception of union, 
the sentiment of nationality. This found proud embodi- 
ment in the Declaration of Independence. 

When the people passed from the status of subjects, exer- 
cising powers of government under the crown as depend- 
ent colonies, to that of sovereigns in a nation composed of 
independent States, they had a deeply rooted conviction, 
that one general government, or one American constitution, 
,was a necessity. They kept in view, in their utterances, 
distinctly and steadily, the aim of framing a system that 
should protect individuals, municipalities, and States, in 
their several spheres of action, while it sliould provide for 



LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT AND NATIONAL UNION. 31 

an efficient discbarge of national offices.' The first result 
reached in " Tlie Articles of Confederation " recognized 
the historic local self-government, but failed to adequately 
embody the idea of national union, and this form proved 
incompetent to secure the blessings that had been attained 
by the Revolution ; but both ideas, as they had been applied 
in institutions, were recognized in the next great result 
of " The More Perfect Union " of the Constitution of the 
■ United States, which was ordained as the supreme law of 
the land. y 

The Republic thus established rose, as the fulfilment of 
a logical sequence, from a state of society in which rank and 
privilege did not exist. The principles on which it was 
founded were brought over by the emigrants ; so that the. 
last finish in the Constitution, after the achievement of inde- 
pendence, was but the fulfilment of the first thought.^ The 
form of government was designed for the welfare of a free 
people and a great nation, by providing for them just and 
equal laws. The ancient republics, based on the inequality 
of men, were, in reality, oppressive aristocracies : ^ the repub- 
lics of the Middle Ages had free institutions within their 
walls; but outside of them the divine right of kings or nobles 
remained unshaken : % the Republic of tlie United States 
was founded on the American theory announced in the 
Declaration of Independence, and this was embodied in the 
rules of law for the conduct of its citizens in the Con- 
stitution. This republic presents the rare and difficult 
system of one general government, the action of which 
extends over the whole nation, but which possesses certain 
enumerated powers, and of numerous State governments, 
which retain and exercise all powers not delegated to 

1 Gervimis: Introduction to the Nineteenth Century, 66. 

2 Schmidt (La Societt^ Civile, 25) says, " The most oppressive aristocracies." 
Bridges (France under Riclielieu and Colbert, 124) says, that, even in the most 
democratic Greek and Roman States, " the free citizens constituted a pure aristocracy, 
the vast mass of the working population being slaves." 

8 Bridges, 124. 



32 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

the Union. ^ Under this protection and organization, the 
two elements of the national life, embodied into institutions 
adapted to their respective spheres, unfolded their blessings 
in harmony, and, through the great modern instrumentality 
of representation, are extending over the continent. A 
narrative of the rise of this system will show how in- 
stinctively the people appreciated and valued the grandest 
traditionary influence in all history. Local Self-government,^ 
and that providential product, American Union. 



1 Opinion: 9 Wheaton, 205. 

2 " The form of government which alone renders popular institutions compatible 
with extent of territory, is that form which has its origin in this ancient element of 
Saxon local self-government. Who can question that it is such a political system that 
has expanded this Republic from its primitive circumspection to its present extent; 
so that, that which at first reached not far beyond the sound of the Atlantic, became 
enlarged beyond the mountains; then beyond the Mississippi; and now, having 
crossed the second great mountain range of the continent, has on its other border the 
sound of the earth's other great ocean. I know of no grander traditional influence 
to be observed in history than this simple Saxon characteristic element, and the 
mighty issues of it now manifest around us, — the connection between this principle 
of local self-government obscurely recognized in the ancient fatherland of the Saxon, 
carried thence to England to be combined with the central power of a constitu- 
tional monarch}', and now a living principle here, helping, by the harmony of State 
rights and federal energy, to extend and perpetuate the Republic." — Professor 
Reed's Lectures on the Union. 



CHAPTER II. 

The Combination of Local Self-government and Union in thk 
New-England Confederacy. 

1643 to 1684. 

The analysis, in the preceding chapter, of the manner in 
which the Thirteen Colonies were founded, shows that the 
immigrants, in framing their separate governments, obeyed 
a primitive tradition of their Germanic ancestors. And as 
society was thus divided into distinct communities, each 
unfolding a local life peculiar to itself, civilization obeyed in 
its development a law of diversity : but the idea of joining 
these communities into a union for their common defence 
and general welfare was suggested so early by tlie circum- 
stances of their condition, and expanded so naturally into 
the conception of a republic and a nation, that it may be 
termed American. The two elements of local government 
and union were first combined in a common polity in the 
New-England Confederacy. 

Tiiis confederacy was formed in 1643. Most of the maps 
of North America at that period are either French or Dutch, 
and they assign to the English colonies but a small por- 
tion of the soil. The most comprehensive and minute is 
that of Sanson, the creator of French geography. He gave 
narrow boundaries to represent the vast region which the 
patent of Virginia covered, and tlie territory which tbe 
emigrants to New England were occupying ; and lie allotted 
still smaller limits to the splendid land which the Holland- 
ers claimed as New Netherland. The Spanish possession of 
Florida is delineated as beginning at Mexico and extending 
on the Atlantic coast as far as Virginia, with a wide sweep 

8 



iJ4 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

into the interior. The remainder of the northern part of 
the continent is assigned to France. Tiie French mission- 
aries were then penetrating the Valley of the Ohio, and 
giving names to the stations which tliey established ; and 
these names, covering a large portion of the map, show the 
vastness of the region claimed as New France.^ 

Colonization, up* to that period, had made slow progress 
in North America. The Colony of Virginia, after thirty- 
six years of difficulty and struggle, had, together with Mary- 
land, founded under the most happy auspices, a population 
of less than twenty thousand. Tiie Swedes planted a small 
colony on the Delaware. And the Hollanders established 
posts or forts at Nassau, near the present site of Phila- 
delphia, at Albany, and at Manhattan, with bouweries or 
plantations near the Hudson : but the province was in a low 
condition. The New-England colonies had a population of 
about twenty-five thousand. Perhaps five thousand would 
be a large estimate for the numbers of Frenchmen, Span- 
iards, Swedes, and Hollanders who had settled on the soil 
claimed by their respective countries. A century and a half 

1 There are good maps of sections of North America at this period, as of New 
England, New Netherland, and Virginia; but the general maps are crude. The 
first edition of Hondius's Mercator — the "Atlas Minor" — was printed in 1606. I 
found the second edition, printed at Amsterdam in 1607, in the " Prince Collection " in 
Boston Public Library. This contains a map of North and South America, entitled 
"Amekic.e Desckip " It has on it " Machauche," " Virginia," and " Florida; " 
but, of courf^e, it is very crude. Yet the plate from which this map was printed 
was used by Purchas (1625) with the title of " Hondivs his map of America;" 
by Saltonstal, in his translation of Hondius, in 1635; by Gage, in his "New Survey 
of the West Indies," in 1655; and in the "Gorges Tracts," one of which is entitled 
" America Painted to the Life," in 1659, in wliich the map is termed " a complete 
and exquisite map," having the head-line left off. There is in Purchas's " Pil- 
grimes," part iii., a beautiful map of America of 1625; but it is too early for my 
purpose. 

Sanson was born at Amiens, in 1600, and at sixteen drew a better map of Ancient 
Gaul than that of Ortelius or of Mercator He died in 1667. — Ency. Britannica. His 
map, printed in Paris in 1657, is entitled " Ameuicqve Septentkionale," and has 
many more names than Ble;iu's map, Amsterdam, 1635, De Laet's French, 1640, or 
Visscher's of 1652, and others I have examined. Sanson's map was printed in a 
volume describing America. His son, G. Sanson, printed this map, with additions, 
in 1669 ; and, in 1693, another son, N. Sanson, printed an edition of his father's 
general geography. 



THE NEW-ENGLAND CONFEDERACY. 35 

after tho discoveries of Columbus in America, there were 
probably not fifty thousand European emigrants within the 
original limits of the United States.^ 

England long manifested great indifference to the coloni- 
.zation of North America, — the bold spirit of her early 
navigators being in marked contrast to the stolidity of her 
statesmen. In the period which has been termed " the first 
age of the colonies," the whole superintendence of the king, 
both as to executive and legislative powers, was exercised 
by the Privy Council.^ The work of colonization and gov- 
ernment was committed to the two great companies, the 
Loudon and the Plymouth, whose spirit of monopoly and 
arbitrary power had a chilling effect on British enterprise.^ 
The latter company — the Council for New England — 
obtained, in 1620, the grant of a great tract of territory in 
America. At length, Charles I. created, in 1634, by a com- 
mission, a board called the " Lords Commissioners of For- 
eign Plantations," consisting of certain high officers of state, 
any five of whom were empowered to make laws, constitu- 
tions, or ordinances affecting either the public condition or 
the private property of the colonists. Archbishop Laud was 
the ruling spirit of this board. At that period, the king 
was striving to absorb all the functions of government, and 
was attempting to rule without a parliament. Tliis occa-. 
sioned that great and noble uprising, the Revolution of 
1640, which for a period frustrated the designs upon the 
liberties of New England. A civil war then broke out; and 



^ In " A Perfect Description of Virginia," printed in London in 1649, it is stated, 
that there are in Virginia " about fifteen thousand English " and tliree hundred 
negroes; that one hundred Swedes had come and crept into a river called Delawar, 
and were driving a great trade in furs with the natives; and that this plantation and 
the Hollanders parted Virginia and New England, which " was in a good condition 
for a livelihood," and contained nbout twenty thousand. The Indian war of five 
years had nearly depopulated Manhattan and the greater part of western Long 
Island; and, in 1647, such was the low condition of New Netherland, that, excepting 
the Long-Island settlements, scarcely fifty bouweries could be counted. — Brodlead, 
410, 465. 

2 Chalmers's Opinions, 5. * Chalmers's Annals, 92. 



36 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

the fall of Hampden, in 1G43, in so just a cause, gave an 
inspiring vvatcluvord to the future American patriots. 

The Indians were told of tiic struggle that was going on 
in England. And it became a saying among them, that now 
or never was the time to root out the English, as they could- 
not be assisted by their nation ; and all who encroached on 
their hunting gi-ounds were alike to the savages. They 
assaulted Virginia with terrible severity ; ^ tlie whole of the 
territory subsequently called New Jersey was conquered ;2 
they swept over New Netherland with such desolation as 
nearly to depopulate Manhattan, and to make 1643 a year 
of blood.^ They had resolved to attack New England. 
Though the colonies of Virginia and Maryland furnish but 
a few facts illustrative of the progress of Union, yet this 
simultaneous assault on the colonies showed the necessity 
of uniting their strength for the common defence. 

The New-England colonies were increasing in importance. 
Plymouth obtained a patent from the Council for New Eng- 
land ; but it only conferred a title to the soil. Without 
other authority than that assumed in the covenant which its 
founders entered into on board the " Mayflower," they estab- 
lished all the branches of a government. In twenty-three 
years, however, they attained to a population of only three 
thousand. William Bradford was their governor. Massa- 
chusetts, first under a patent from the Council for New 
England, confirming a right of the soil, and then under 
a charter from the crown conveying powers of government, 
had grown into a commonwealth, had just taken (1641) the 
settlements commenced in New Hampshire under its juris- 
diction, and had reached a population of fifteen thousand. 
John Winthrop was the governor. The emigrants who went 
out from Massachusetts and founded Connecticut, without a 
ciiartcr, agreed, in 1639, upon articles of association that 
joined them in a body politic. They had increased to 

1 Howison's Virginin, i. 287. • Brodbead's New York, 369. 

8 Brodhead's New York, 347, 369. 



THE NEW-ENGLAND CONFEDERACY. 37 

three tliousand in numbers. John Hayues was the gov- 
ernor. A company direct from London, without a charter, 
founded the Colony of New Haven, and voted that the Holy 
Scriptures should be the perfect rule of their commonwealth. 
They numbered twenty-five hundred, but had not elected a 
governor.^ The banishment of Roger Williams from Massa- 
chusetts resulted in the foundation of Providence, and of 
Rhode Island, on the great principles of liberty of con- 
science in religion, and the will of the majority — the demo- 
cratic principle in civil affairs. The colony was small. 
Their leader, in 1643, went to England, to solicit a charter. 
A settlement had been commenced, under the proprietorship 
of Sir Ferdinand© Gorges, in the province of Maine, with 
the Church of England as the established religion, and 
with municipal forms, ranks, and titles like those in Eng- 
land ; but it did not flourish. Such is a glance at the 
political New England of that day. It was described at 
that period as containing fifty towns and villages, thirty or 
forty churches, a castle, a college, prisons, forts, comfortable 
houses, gardens, and orchards, — all the work of the set- 
tlers, and at their own charge, " no public hand reaching 
out any help." ^ 

The builders of this prosperity were doing in their local 
government the things which in England were done for the 
body of the people by the few. A correspondent of Arch- 
bishop Laud, who kept a jealous eye on the colonies, repre- 
sented to him in a letter, that " it was not new discipline that 
was aimed at, but sovereignty ; " ^ and men of this class peti- 
tioned, that tlie several jurisdictions might be consolidated, 
and a general governor be appointed. At that period, a 
writ of quo warranto was issued against the Massachusetts 
charter, and the Commissioners of Foreign Plantations de- 
signed to remodel the internal regulations of the colonies. 

1 I take the careful estimates of Palfrey's " Hist. New England," ii. 6. 

2 New England's First Fruits, printed in London, in 1643. 
• Hutchinson's Mass., i. 86. 



38 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Ill this time of gloom, when the colonists were obliged to 
enconnter the savages at their doors, and the arbitrary 
proceedings of Charles in England, the General Court of 
Massachusetts, in an address to the Lords Commissioners, 
in defence of their local liberties under the charter, made 
this earnest protestation on the vital point of sovereignty : 
" We do hereby humbly and sincerely profess, that we are 
ready to yield all due obedience to our sovereign Lord, the 
king's majesty, and to your Lordships under him ; and in 
this mind we left our native country." ^ However ready 
the commissioners were to interfere with the internal affairs 
of the colonies, they were not disposed to use the force of 
the nation to protect the lives or the interests of the emi- 
grants. One of the foremost men of Plymouth, Edward 
Winslow, being in London, petitioned this board, in behalf 
of the plantations, either to defend them from the encroach- 
ments of the French on the east, or from the Hollanders 
on the west, or " give special warrant to the plantations to 
act ; " and he urged this petition before the commissioners. 
He found friends among them. But, at the instance of 
Laud, the charge was brought against the petitioner, that, 
without being a minister, he had exhorted in the congre- 
gation ; and that, in his capacity as a magistrate, he had 
joined parties in marriage. He admitted the facts. For 
these acts, this excellent man — a pillar of old Plymouth — 
was ordered by the board to be committed to the Fleet, 
and was imprisoned for seventeen weeiis. The colonists, in 
this rough way, were told to practise the duty and the virtue 
of self-reliance. They profited by the lesson.^ 

The emigrants, thrown on their own resources, looked for 
security in joint effort. It was their thought in the begin- 
ning that one day the colonies would be "joined together 



1 The whole address is in Hutchinson, i. 507. 

2 Tlie petition and details are in Deane's " Bradford," 328, 330. Winthrop (i. 172) 
says this petition was oftbred " by ill advice, for it was a precedent that the colonies 
should do nothing hereafter without ii commission from England." 



THE NEW-ENGLAND CONFEDERACY. 39 

in one common bond." ^ A proposition for a Union was 
suggested at a meeting of Connecticut magistrates and min- 
isters in Boston, in 1637.^ Tlie next year, articles embody- 
ing the idea were elaborately discussed.^ In 1639, Haynes 
and Hooker were nearly a month in Boston, urging the 
project."^ In 1640, an assault by the Indians appeared to be 
so imminent that the magistrates of Aquidnet (Rhode 
Island), Connecticut, and New Haven, in a joint letter to 
the Massachusetts authorities, again proposed it ; and, in 
reply, the General Court accepted the suggestions of the 
letter, but uncivilly and narrowly refused to have their reply 
transmitted to the Rhode-Island magistrates, saynig that 
they were men " not to be capitulated with," either " for 
themselves or the people of the island where they inhabit." ^ 
Again, in 1612, the civil war in England prompted a re- 
newal of the measure.^ The details of this long action are 
quite circumstantial. 

In the following year, the attitude of the powerful tribe 
of Narragansetts was so threatening as to cause commis- 
sioners from four of the colonies to meet in Boston and 
agi-ec upon the terms of confederation.'^ Those from Massa- 
chusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven signed articles of 
association on the 19th of May, 1643. The delegates from 
Plymouth, not being authorized to sign, reported the articles 
to their General Court, which submitted them to the towns 
to be acted on ; and in this way they were ratified by the 
people and form an interesting precedent in our political 
history. Then the General Court empowered its delegates 
to affix the seal of that colony to the articles. Thus was 
formed the Confederation of " The United Colonies of New 
England." ^ The four jurisdictions had a population of 
twenty-four thousand, living in thirty-nine towns. 

1 Hubbard, 3G6. 2 Winthrop, i. 237. S Ibid., i. 284. 4 Ibid., 299. 

5 Mass. Kecords. i. 305. 6 Winthrop, ii. 85. ' Bradford, 416. 

8 Winthrop, ii 99. Tiie commissioners from Plymouth were Edward Winslow 
and William Collier; from Connecticut, .John Ha3'nes and Edward Hopkins; from 
New Haven, Theophilus Eaton and Thomas Greyson; from Saybrook, George Fea- 



40 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

When the Connecticut magistrates returned to their 
homes, bearing the welcome news that the bond of union 
had been agreed upon, an eminent divine of tliis colony, 
Thomas Hooker, addressed to Jolni Winthrop, tlie Fatlier 
of Massachusetts, a strain of acknowledgment and con- 
gratulation that reveals the elevated thought and noble aims 
of the founders of New England : " Much Honored in our 
Blessed Savior : At the return of our majistrates, when I 
understood the gracious and desired success of their en- 
deavor, and by the joint relation of them all, not only your 
christian readiness, but enlarged faithfulness in an especial 
manner to promote so good a work . . . my heart would not 
suffer me but as unfeignedly to acknowledge the Lord's good- 
ness, so affectionately to remember your candid and cordial 
carriage in a matter of so great consequence ; laboring by 
your special prudence to settle a foundation of safety and 
prosperity in succeeding ages : a work which will be found 
not only for your comfort, but for your crown at tlie great 
day of your account. Its the greatest good that can befall 
a man in tliis world, to be an instrument under God to do a 
great deal of good. To be the repairer of the breach, was 
of old counted matter of the highest praise and acceptance 
with God and man : nnich more to be a means, not only 
to maintain peace and truth in your days, but to leave both, 
as a legacy to those that come after until the coming of the 
Son of Man in the clouds." ^ 

The terms of the agreement between the four colonies are 
contained in a preamble and eleven articles. It is related 
in the preamble, that they all came into these parts of 
America with one and the same end in view, namely, to 
advance the cause and enjoy the liberties of the gospel in 
purity and with peace. Being dispersed to such an extent 

wick; and from Massachusetts, John Winthrop, Thomas Dudley, and Simon Brad- 
street, of the magistrates; Edward Gibbons and William T.vng, of the deputies; and 
William Hathome, the treasurer. 

1 This letter was lirst printed in the 4th series " Mass. Hist. Coll.," vi. 390. The 
manuscript has on it Winthrop's indorsement, " Rec. (5) 24, 1643." 



THE NEW-ENGLAND CONFEDERACY. 41 

that they could not be in one government ; living en- 
compassed with people of several nations, and with nations 
who had combined against them ; and seeing tliat the sad 
distractions of England prevented them from receiving that 
protection which at other times tliey miglit expect, — they 
conceived it to be their bounden duty to enter into a " con- 
sociation " for mutual help and strengtli in all their future 
concernments, that, as in nation and religion, so in other 
respects they might continue one according to the tenor of 
the articles, and to be called by the name of the United 
Colonies of New England. 

By the second and third articles, — the first being the 
preamble, — the colonies agreed to form a firm and per- 
petual league of friendship for offence and defence ; but 
provided, " that the plantations settled within the limits of 
the Massachusetts should be for ever under the government 
of Massachusetts, and should have peculiar jurisdiction 
among themselves, in all cases, as an entire body ; " the 
same terms being used in reserving similar riglits to the 
other colonies. It was also agreed, that, without the con- 
sent of the rest, no other plantation should be admitted into 
the league, nor that any not in the league should be re- 
ceived by either of them, nor that any two should join in 
one jurisdiction. By the fourth article, the charges of 
wars were to be apportioned in each jurisdiction, according 
to the number of males in each from sixteen to sixty years 
of age. Each jurisdiction was left " to its own just course 
and custom of rating themselves and people according to 
their different estates, with due respect to tlieir qualities 
and exemptions among themselves, though the confederates 
take no notice of any such privilege." The fifth article 
provided for the methods of summoning tlie forces of the 
colonies into the field in case of an invasion of any juris- 
diction by an enemy. In a time of danger, two magistrates 
niiglit summon a meeting of the commissioners of the con- 
federation. 



42 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

The three succeeding articles provided for the choice, by 
each of the four jurisdictions, of two commissioners, who were 
to meet oncG every year, to consider all affairs belonging to 
the confederation. They were required to be in the fellow- 
ship of the churches. Any six were empowered to deter- 
mine any question. But, if these did not agree on a 
proposition, it was to be sent to the four general courts, 
and, if they agreed, it was to be carried into effect by all the 
confederates : but they were restricted from " intermeddling 
with the government of any of the jurisdictions, which, by 
the third article, was preserved entirely to themselves." 
They might choose out of themselves a president, who, how- 
ever, was to have no more power than any other member. 
It was provided, that this board should " frame and estab- 
lish agreements and orders in general cases of a civil na- 
ture," as for preserving peace and preventing war ; for 
securing the free and speedy passage of justice in each 
jurisdiction to all the confederates equally ; for receiving 
those who removed from one plantation to another ; for 
regulating their intercourse with the Indians ; and for the 
return of runaway servants and fugitives from justice. 

The ninth and tenth articles contained a pledge by each 
not to engage in war without the sanction of the commis- 
sioners, and that in exigencies four commissioners might 
consent to a war. The eleventh provided for the cases arising 
under a breach of the articles ; and the twelfth, for ratify- 
ing the confederation. 

Tiie four colonies in this compact, as belonging to " one 
nation," formed a league for self-defence and the common 
well'are. Its basis was that of the equality of tlie parties 
to it, or of each colony as an entire body ; and it was its 
object to secure equality of rights to the inhabitants of all. 
It was specified, that the vital subject of taxation should 
be left to the several local jurisdictions, and that the com- 
missioners sliould not intermeddle with their administra- 
tive functions ; thereby recognizing the inviolability of the 



THE NEW-ENGLAND CONFEDERACY. 43 

local government. *^he Union element, represented in the 
Board of Commissioners, was but feebly provided for ; 
the board being little more tlian a consulting body, which 
could devise what ouglit to be done, but could not execute 
it. >The theocracy of the time is seen in requiring for the 
commissioners cliurch membership, — a qualification re- 
quired in tliree of the colonies to constitute a voter. This 
rule excluded otlier colonies. Thus the colony in Maine 
was excluded because " it ran a different course " in re- 
ligion and civil affairs from the other colonies ; ^ and the 
colony of Rliode Island, for various reasons, was never able 
to get admission to tlie confederacy. ' A great principle was 
at the bottom of the confederation ; but, noble as were the 
aims of those who handled it, they had not yet attained to 
sufficient breadth of view to apply it even to the whole of 
New Enoland.2 ^ 



1 Winthrop, ii. 100. 

2 The qualification that the commissioners should be in church membership 
would of course exclude both these colonies. In " A Discourse about civil government 
in a new I'lantation whose design is Religion," published in 10G3, but written many 
years before, according to Professor Kingsley (Hist. Discourse), by John Daven- 
port, accoriling to others, by John Cotton, the principle of the church member- 
ship qualification is defended on the ground of usage by an appeal to facts. At the 
close of very hard reading is the following: " But I must break offlest I grow too 
tedious. How easily might I adde the Consent of all Nations to this Truth, in some 
proportion, who generally pnctise accordingly? In our Native Countrey, none are 
intrusted with managing of Public Affairs but Members of the Church of England (as 
they call them). In Holland, where the Arminian Party had many Burgomasters on 
their side, (Jrave Maurice came into divers of their Cities with Troops of Souldiers, by 
Order from the States Generall, and put those Arminian magistrates out of OiKce, 
and caused them to ehuse onely such as were of the Dutch Churches. And in Rot- 
terdam (and I think it is so in other Tov/ns) the Vrentscap (who are all of them of 
the Dutch Church, and free Burgers) do out of their own company chuse the Bur- 
gomaster, and other Magistrates and Officers. In all Popish Countrej-s and Planta- 
tions, they observe it strictly, to intrust none with the managing of Public Civil 
Affairs but such as are Catholicks, (as they speak) and of the Roman Church. Yea, 
in Tuiky itself, the}' are careful that none but a man devoted to Mahomet bear 
public office. Yea, these very Indians that worship the Devil will not be under the 
Government of any Snffamores but such as joyn with them in Observance of their 
Pawawes and Idolitries: That it seems to be a Principle imprinted in the mindes 
and hearts of all men in the equity of it: That such a Form of Government as best 
serveth to Establish their Religion, should by the consent of all be Established in 
the Civil State." — p. 24. 



44 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

This league, in many important respects, met the expecta- 
tions of its founders. It combined the strength of the 
colonies. It regulated their relations with each other. It 
was used as a high court to determine questions of jurisdic- 
tion. It managed the relations with the Indians, and some- 
times negotiated with the French and the Dutcli. The 
spirit of subordination to the supreme power in whicli it 
dealt with matters having a national bearing was illustrated 
in the adjustment (1650) of a threatening boundary dispute 
between tlie people of New Haven and New Netherland, 
which stipulated that it should be binding " until a full de- 
termination be agreed upon in Europe, by mutual consent 
of the two States of England and Holland." It labored to 
promote the growth of Harvard College and to propagate 
the gospel. It inqreased largely the importance of New 
England ; and though it became weak and inefficient by 
the total absence of a self-sustaining power, yet in crises 
when great public wants supply defects in forms, it was used 
with great effect to provide for the common safety. 

While the colonists were forming this confederation, the 
spectacle of progress which New England presented was so 
gratifying to the Long Parliament, that, in 1642, it freed 
certain merchandise entering its ports from duties, declaring 
" that the plantations in New England, by the blessing of 
the Almighty, had good and prosperous success without any 
charge to this State, and are now likely to prove very happy 
for the propagation of the gospel in those parts, and very 
beneficial and commodious to this kingdom and nation." ^ 
The benefit thus recognized was the foundation for an in- 
crease of commercial advantages, and for a numerous peo- 
ple of English sentiments and ideas. But the assumption 
of self-government — the re-appearance of Saxon freedom — 
was looked upon, throughout the colonial age, with jealousy 

1 The Massachusetts General Court, in gratitude for this act, ordered it to be 
entered ou their records, where it stands under the date of May 19, 1643. — Records, 
i. 34. 



THE NEW-ENGLAND CONFEDERACY. ' 45 

by the ruling classes of England, who never lost sight of the 
object of moulding and controlling American affairs. It is 
doubtful whether many members of the Long Parliament got 
politically beyond the idea, that the body of tlie people, 
whether living in England or America, had a right to the 
benefit of good government, which it was the duty of the 
higher orders or of the few, to provide for them. This, at 
least, is the spirit of an ordinance passed in April, 1643, 
creating a commission to superintend the colonies, called 
the " Lords of Trade and Plantations," composed of the 
Earl of Warwick as Governor-in-chief and Lord High Ad- 
miral, and a council, consisting of five peers and twelve of 
the Commons, who were clothed with plenary powers.^ The 
commission did not differ essentially from the Board for 
a similar object, created by Charles I., though a different 
spirit governed the action of its members. 

At this period, the local governments were dealing with 
certain opinions that were pronounced to be heresy by the 
Church, and to be faction by the State ; and in doing this, 
in the dawning of a recognition of an inherent right of the 
people to criticise public measures and to enjoy freedom 
in religion, there were seen in America specimens of the 
errors and the intolerance which were characteristic of the 
age. Aggrieved parties appealed for redress from local 
decisions to the Lords of Trade ; charged that the colonies 
were aiming at sovereignty ; and some petitioned for the 
appointment of a general governor. However just their 
cause might have been in the abstract, these parties, in taking 
this course, put themselves in the wrong ; for this was an 
attempt to undermine tlie common liberty, and was a grave 
offence against posterity. The Governor and Company of 
Massachusetts, in an official communication from the Lords 
Commissioners of the 15th of May, 1646, were summoned 



1 This ordinance was printed in a tract by William Castell in 1644. Henry 
Vane, John Pym, and Oliver Cromwell were members of this board. 



46 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

to answer complaints of this nature.^ In their reply, they 
aver, that, though removed out of their native country, they 
still had dependence on it, and owed allegiance and subjec- 
tion to it according to their charter ; but said that they had 
not admitted appeals to the Lords of Trade because they 
believed the practice could not stand with the liberty and 
power that had been granted to them, and that they believed it 
would not be allowed by the commissioners because it would 
be destructive to all government.^ The court also prepared 
an elaborate Declaration,^ and appointed Edward Winslow 
of Plymouth, who had been imprisoned by the former com- 
mission, to take care of it. This vigilant and capable public 
servant, on arriving in England, found that the faction, in 
the usual manner of unscrupulous partisans, had used false- 
hoods and manufactured pretexts to gain their ends. They 
had cited in print, as fresh proof that tlie colonists aimed 
at sovereignty, the fact of the New-England Confederacy ; 
and they unblushingly said, that " the Massachusetts united 
with the other colonies to the end they might batlie them- 
selves in blood and feed themselves fat with the lives of 
their brethren," To this Winslow said, in print, " This is a 
notorious slander." ^ And, in relation to the allegation that 

1 Hubbard, 503. 2 ibid., 506. 

8 In the Declaration of the General Court, 4th 9, 1646, in reply to Child's re- 
monstrance (Hutchinson's Coll., 199), it is said: "For our government itself, it is 
framed according to our charter, and the fundamental and common laws of Eng- 
land, and carried on according to the same (taking the words of eternal truth and 
righteousness along with them, as that rule by which all kingdoms and jurisdictions 
must render account of every act and administration in the last day), with as 
bare allowance for the disproportion between such an ancient, populous, wealthy 
kingdom, and so poor an infant tliin colony, as common reason can aftbrd." Cita- 
tions to sustain this statement are arranged in two columns. For illustration, a pas- 
sage of Magna Charta is thus set against a " Fundamental of Mass ," as follows: — 

MAGNA CHARTA. FUNDAMENTALS OP THE MASS. 

All cities and towns shall have their liber- The freemen of every town may dispose 

ties and customs. of their town lands, &c., and may make such 

orders as may be for the welljbrdering of their 
towns, and may choose their constables and 
other officers. — (1) m., 1635. 

* ' Ilypocrisie Vnmasked," by Edward Winslow, printed in London in 1646. 
I am indebted to Mr. Charles Deane for the use of a copy of this rare work. It was 



THE NEW-ENGLAND CONFEDERACY. 47 

this Union was entered into without any permission from 
England, he answered, " If we in America should forbear to 
unite for offence and defence against a common enemy 
(keeping our governments still distinct as we do) till we 
have leave from England, our throats miglit be all cut before 
the messenger would be half seas through." ^ Tlie manly 
Declaration, together witli the sterling principles and the 
persoiud influence of Winslow, resulted in a substantial 
triumph for the colonies. The position taken by them was 
accepted in a liberal letter by the Commission, and the 
appeals to it taken by the faction were disallowed.^ Still 
there was a lurking jealousy of popular power in the 
minds of the Lords of Trade. Winslow advised the colo- 
nies, tliat there were designs maturing against their liber- 
ties ; and an act of parliament, a little later, manifested this 
fact. The Massachusetts General Court, in 1651, address- 
ing this body as " the supreme authority," thanked it for 
stopping appeals to the Commission, and plead earnestly that 
the frame of tlieir government might not be changed, but 
that they miglit continue to live under magistrates of their 
own choosing, and laws of their own making, not repugnant 
to the laws of England, as they had " governed themselves 
above this twenty-three years." ^ This plea proved effectual, 
and the colonies were allowed, by the celebrated Long Par- 
liament, the boon of neglect from the mother country, or, 
rather, the favor of an acquiescence in their claim to the 
enjoyment of local self-government. 

Nor was the political relation of the colonies changed 
during the rule of Oliver Cromwell, a great hero of the 
Teuton race, who rose to be a connecting link between 
Luther and Washington, all of like stock and intuitions.^ 

written in reply to a tract entitled "Simplicities Defence against Seven headed 
policy." by Samuel Gorton, printed in London. 

1 Winslow's New-England's Salamander Discovered. London, 1647. 

2 Mass. Coll , ii. 141. The letter was sent to each of the colonies, and was dated 
May 25, 1647. — Hubbard, 509. 

8 Hutchinson's Mass., i. 616. ■* Kapp's Life of Steuben, 111. 



48 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Though Cromwell, with wonderful sagacity, dealt roughly 
with the factions which threatened to rend the land, yet he 
inaugurated a reign of personal liberty and national glory 
such as England never saw before. He was the first of her 
statesmen who had a true sense of the value of the colo- 
nies to the mother country.^ It did not disturb him that 
the colonists held the Navigation Act to be contrary to their 
charters, as it was contrary to their natural riglits ; for he 
saw that with a claim of local government that was some- 
times untenable, yet there existed a devotion to the country 
or the sovereignty that was genuine and serviceable ; and 
where there was this allegiance, he forbore to intermeddle 
with the internal affairs of the colonies. Under his admin- 
istration. New England and Virginia enjoyed free commerce 
and self-government.^ Among the noblest spirits of that 
time were Robert Sedgwick, Edward Winslow, and Roger 
Williams,^ types of the men of America, who counselled 
with Vane and Milton and Cromwell, characters that made 
an indelible mark on their age. They felt and acted as 
countrymen.* 

There was no interference by the Protector with the Con- 
federation. It was maintained in full vigor. The meetings 
of tlie commissioners were regularly held. The colonies 
found safety in Union. Their prosperity was increasing. 
Relations, far too flattering, were circulated of the spread 
of the gospel among the Indians. " It cannot be hid," 
Roger Williams wrote in 1654, " how all England and other 
nations ring with the glorious conversion of the Indians 



1 Hutchinson's Mass.. i. 194. 2 Bancroft, i. 230, 446. 

8 Roger Williams, in a letter in 1654, says, in the many discourses he had with 
Cromwell, he '' ever expressed a high spirit of Christian love and gentleness." — 
Plymouth Records, x. 439. 

■* It was not unusual to designate the colonists and Englishmen as '' country- 
men." In " !i manifesto of the Lord Protector," printed in 1055, p 'uned by John 
Milton, occurs the phrase "Our countrymen in America;" and in " Wonder WorK- 
ing Providence " (73, 217), written by Edward Johnson, of Massachusetts, the phrase 
sevenil times occurs of "our countrymen," applied to Englishmen. 



THE NEW-ENGLAND CONFEDERACY. 49 

of New England." ^ And it was said, in an English docu- 
ment of 1656, of the northern parts of America, that they 
gave evidence of great improvements " almost to the world's 
wonder, especially in those parts called New England." ^ 
One of its venerated characters, John Eliot, embodied the 
hope, enthusiasm, and political ideal of the time in a tract 
entitled " The Christian Comraouwealth," — a very crude 
essay, but American in this, that it was imbued with tlie 
spirit of a new civilization, and was a protest against monar- 
chical power. It welcomed the triumphs of Cromwell, and 
advocated a sort of commonwealth or republic, in which 
the choice of " superior rulers," as well " as municipal,'" 
should be " by all the people over whom they were to rule." ^ 

The restoration of the monarchy dissipated these visions 
of a commonwealth. On the 25th of May, 1660, Charles 11. 
landed at Dover to ascend the throne of his ancestors. 
This young, rollicking, wanton king made pleasure his main 
pursuit ; but his brother, the Duke of York, subsequently 
James II., — a man of a positive character, — took pleasure 
in business ; and he pursued his ends with so much ambi- 
tion, boldness, and energy, that soon it was said ho was the 
State. Sir Edward Hyde, who had just been created Earl 
of Clarendon, and subsequently was the father-in-law of the 
Duke, was the Lord Chancellor and the chief minister. 
This bland and wily courtier, high church and high tory in 
his principles and of smooth speech, aimed to re-invest roy- 
alty with all its functions. His policy in relation to the 
colonies was definite and steadily pursued though in a fox- 
like manner, during the seven years in which he licld power. 
He strove to bring them into a close dependence on the pre- 
rogative. 

This was an epoch in the history of the colonies. In that 
day of dishonor and shame to the people of England, when 
individual and municipal liberties were grossly violated, 

1 Plymouth's Records, x. 439. 2 Thurloe's State Papers, v. 82. 

* This tract is reprinted in Mass. Hist. Coll., iii. 9. 

4 



60 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

when profligacy, public and private, held carnival, it is not 
strange that a colonial polity, which, in its political organi- 
zations and in its educational aims, embodied an aspiration 
of human advancement, was scorned by the reckless rulers 
who wielded the sovereignty. This polity was pronounced 
to be republican. It was held, that, unless the govern- 
ment of the colonies were changed, " they would harden in 
their constitution and grow on nearer to a commonwealth, 
towards which they were already well nigh ripened." ^ It 
was determined to check this tendency, by centralizing in 
the crown several functions that were exercised by the peo- 
ple ; and to the end, that England, as the mother country, 
might have the full commercial benefit of her colonial pos- 
sessions, it was determined to enforce the mercantile system, 
with its absurd restrictions on individual pursuits, — its 
monstrous monopolies and downright robberies.^ This 
was an attempt to install a rule based on privilege, on the 
ruins of a polity in which were working the elements of 
equality and freedom that are the germinal forces of Ameri- 
can institutions. 

On the 4th of July, 1660, at a court at Whitehall, at which 
were present the King, the Duke of York, and the Lord 
Chaucellor, an order was passed constituting ten Lords of 
the Council, or any three or more of them, a board to meet 
twice a week, and receive petitions and papers relating to 
the plantations in America ; and, on the 7th of Novem- 
ber, the king, by a commission, created " A Council for 
Foreign Plantations." This council were required by their 
instructions to correspond with the governors of the colonies, 
and to devise means to bring them into a more certain civil 
and uniform government.^ 

The confusions of the time afforded abundant material 
upon which to found complaints against the colonies, and 

1 In Palfrey's " New England " (i. 579) are citations from a paper supposed to 
have been prepared by Clarendon. 

2 Bancroft's History, ii. 43, 44. 8 N.y. Col. Documents, iii. 30, 32, 36. 



THE NEW-ENGLAND CONFEDERACY. 51 

especially against New England. To former grievances 
growing out of the dealing of the authorities with heretics, 
there were added the sad transactions relating to the Quakers, 
and their earnest appeals. Besides, the London merchants 
were disturbed by the enterprise of New England. Its 
prosperity excited envy in the other colonies ; and its " com- 
monwealth notions " supplied a field in which zealous place- 
men might show their zeal for the crown. In addition, these 
colonies harbored the regicides, and were tardy in making 
their acknowledgment of allegiance to Charles II. The 
complaints to the king were numerous. 

The agent of Massachusetts, John Leverett, then in Lon- 
don, advised the General Court of these complaints, and 
of the feeling there in relation to the colonies.^ Their neglect 
to address the king did not proceed from any design to op- 
pose his authority. Their sound principle of action, during 
the confusions and changes of twenty years, had been to 
follow the sovereignty in every change in the form of its 
government. They acknowledged allegiance to Charles I., 
to the Long Parliament, and to tlie Protector ; but, having 
nothing official from tlie authorities, they waited until they 
saw a prospect of stability .^ Stimulated by the represen- 
tations of their agents, all the colonies sent addresses to 
the king ; and even the courtiers could not object to the 
language in which they expressed their allegiance. The 
king, in February, 1661, returned to the address of Massa- 
chusetts an answer full of fair words. 

Measures, however, of an ominous character were soon 
adopted. The king was told that the New-England Con- 
federacy " was a war combination, made by the four colonies 
when they had a design to throw off their dependence 
on England and for that purpose."^ Individuals appeared 
before the Council for Foreign Plantations to testify against 
the colonies. Thomas Breeden, of Dublin, whom traflBc 

1 Hutchinson Coll., 322. 2 Hutchinson's Hist., i. 209. 

8 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, v. 192. 



52 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

had carried to Boston, holding (March, 1661) a printed 
copy of the laws of Massachusetts in his hands, urged that 
the people looked on themselves as an independent State, 
and that there was a necessity of settling the country in a due 
obedience.^ Samuel Maverick, an old resident of Boston, 
averred that the people of New England were all rebel?, 
and he could prove it.^ One of the counsel asked Leverett 
whether, if the colonies durst, they would not cast off their 
allegiance and subjection to his majesty ; and he replied, 
" They were honest men, who had declared in their appli- 
cation to his majesty the contrary, and therefore he could 
not have such thoughts of them without a breach of char- 
ity."^ There is no authority to add, that this remark was 
met by the cold jeer with which the unscrupulous are apt 
to greet earnest avowals by those who mean what they say ; 
but there is in history the invention, that the colonists had 
a design of independence which it was not policy then to 
avow.* 

When the local government and the confederacy were 
thus misrepresented to the Council for Foreign Plantations, 
'action was pending that involved vital issues. I need state 
only results. At that time, tlie jurisdictions of all the colo- 
nies were far from being settled. Connecticut had no char- 
ter ; New Haven had neither patent nor charter ; Plymouth 
had only obtained a patent giving it a title to the soil, and 
Rhode Island had only a patent from parliament. Each 
colony desired to obtain powers of government from the 
crown or the sovereignty. The two colonies of Connecticut 
and Rhode Island were successful in procui-ing charters, 
which were so liberal that they recognized, substantially, 
the rights and liberties which the people of each enjoyed 
under their voluntary agreements. However gratifying 
these charters were to those colonies, the grant of them 

1 Deposition of Breedon, N.Y. Coll., Doc. 39. 

2 Coll. Maine Hist. Soc, i. 301. « Hutchinson Coll., 339. 
* Chalmers's Annals, 178. 



THE NEW-ENGLAND CONFEDERACY. 53 

was not merely a vigorous assertion of sovereignty, but was 
a blow levelled at the confederacy. By an article of the 
league, no two colonies could be united without the con- 
sent of the others ; but no regard was paid by the crown to 
this provision. The colony of Rhode Island had been not 
only repeatedly denied admission to the confederacy, but it 
was looked upon and treated as a pariah colony ; yet it was 
raised to the position of equality with the other colonies. 
No resistance was offered to this exercise of sovereignty ; 
but there was acquiescence in it. The condemnation of 
Eliot's tract entitled "The Christian Commonw^ealth," by 
the General Court of Massachusetts, on account of its re- 
publican sentiments ; ^ the humble language of the petitions 
of the colonies to the king ; their endeavors, in various 
ways, to obtain royal favor, — New Haven going so far as 
to order the Navigation Act to be rigidly executed,^ — were 
not certainly manifestations of a spirit of separation, but 
of subordination to the sovereignty. The petition of Con- 
necticut to the king implored him " to be pleased to accept 
that colony, — his own colony, — a little branch of his 
mighty empire." 

A short time after the grant of the charters of Connecti- 
cut and Rhode Island, the prodigal Charles II. bestowed 
(March 12, 1664) on his brother, the Duke of York, a prin- 
cipality, consisting of a portion of the territory of New 
England and the whole of New Netherland, — a territory 
extending from the banks of the Delaware to the St. Croix.^ 
The duke was then Lord High Admiral, and at the head of 
a board created to enforce the Navigation Act. The Coun- 
cil for Foreign Plantations, to put him in possession of his 
American dominions, created a special commission. Eng- 
land and the United Netherlands were at peace, and this 
measure demanded an act of war. It was determined to 
devolve on the same commission the duty of regulating 

1 Mass. Eecords, iv. ii. 5. This condemnation was May 22, 1G61. 

2 Palfrey's New England, ii. 554. 3 Trum'biiirs Connecticut, i. 266. 



54 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

the ijiternal affairs of New England, a design which for 
years had been in contemplation. Tlie Duke of York was 
requested to name fit men for this important commission. 
The men selected were Colonel Richard Nichols, a cavalier 
of ability and honor ; Sir Robert Carr and George Cart- 
wright, two arrogant and conceited partisans, who had the 
spirit of Persian satraps ; and Samuel Maverick, an original 
settler, who had quarrelled with the local authorities and 
had complained of their acts. 

The commissioners were empowered to reduce New Neth- 
erland. A letter of the king required them to observe the 
condition of his subjects in New England, and make report 
of it to him, that he might decide " either for the better 
repairing of any thing that was amiss, or for the better 
hiiproving and encouraging of what was good;" and espe- 
cially that he might " discourage, and as much as in him 
lay, suppress and utterly extinguish those unreasonable 
jealousies and malicious calumnies which wicked and un- 
just spirits perpetually labor to infuse into the minds of 
men, that his subjects in those parts do not submit to his 
government, but look upon themselves as independent of 
him and his laws." They were also empowered to hear 
and determine complaints in all civil, criminal, and military 
cases, " according to their good and sound discretion." 

On the 23d of July, 1664, a portion of the fleet de- 
signed to reduce New Netherland arrived at Boston, — 
the first time ships of tlie royal navy had been seen in that 
harbor. Tlie commissioners were on board. The local 
authorities proffered them respect, and tendered to them 
the hospitality of a residence. They preferred to stop at 
the house of Thomas Brceden who was again in Boston. 
They exhibited to the Governor and Council their commis- 
sion ; applied for a small force of militia to serve in their 
expedition against the Dutch ; and tlien, receiving the 
assurance that the request should be attended to, proceeded 
with the fleet on their mission. In September, Manhat- 



THE NEW-ENGLAND CONFEDERACY. 55 

tan capitulated, and thenceforth New Netherland was called 
New York. In October, the Swedes on the Delaware sur- 
rendered ; and then the flag of England floated along the 
whole line of the Atlantic coast from New France to Florida, 
and the original colonies attained a geographical unity. 

Meanwhile the General Court of Massachusetts delib- 
erated on the very grave matter of the commission. The 
debates as to the course that ought to be pursued were 
uncommonly earnest. The reverend elders who were in 
town were called in to give their advice ; a day of fasting 
and prayer was appointed, and a petition to the king was 
adopted. On the receipt of the intelligence of the appoint- 
ment of the commission, the General Court (May 18) had 
put the charter in the hands of a committee to keep it 
"secret and safe;"^ and it resolved (Aug. 3), God assist- 
ing, to bear faith and true allegiance to his majesty, and to 
adhere to the privileges of the patent, " so dearly obtained 
and so long enjoyed by undoubted right in the sight of God 
and man." ^ To do this, they would be obliged to confront 
at their own doors a commission clothed with the functions 
of determining appeals which they had successfully contested 
with the Long Parliament. If this commission was valid, 
its discretion would be installed above the local law, and 
thus would supersede the charter. In fact, its creation was 
an unwarrantable exercise of the prerogative, and, as a 
precedent, dangerous to English liberties, and a violation 
of colonial rights. 

In February, 1665, three of the commissioners returned 
to Boston, — Colonel Nichols remaining with the fleet, — 
when they proceeded to assert their authority. Their func- 
tions were recognized at Plymouth, and appeals were made 
to them ; also at Rhode Island, which, grateful for a char- 
ter, gave them in addition large tokens of respect. At 
Connecticut, where there was like joy for a similar favor, 
they met with a hearty welcome and recognition of their 

1 Mass. Records, iv. 102. 2 ibid., 118. 



56 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

authority. Gratified with their reception, they returned 
to Boston, prepared to deal with the most influential colony 
in America, hoping, tliey said, " that the submission and 
condescension of the other colonies to his majesty's designs 
would have abated the refractoriness of this colony which 
they much feared." ^ The magistrates at Plymouth, how- 
ever, repelled in a spirited manner certain allegations 
brought against the Confederacy. In their answer to the 
commissioners, they said, '' The league between the four colo- 
nies was not with any intent (that we ever heard of) to 
cast off our dependence upon England, — a thing wliich we 
utterly abhor, entreating your honors to believe us, for we 
speak as in the presence of God."^ 

A full board — Nichols having rejoined his associates — 
assembled in Boston on the 2d of May. It was the eve of the 
general election. The event was rendered uncommonly 
exciting by the novel course of the commissioners, who, 
in the previous February, sent letters to gentlemen in the 
country, inviting them and their neighbors — non-freemen 
as well as others — to be present at this election, and tlius 
be " both ear and eye witnesses " of his majesty's favor, 
saying that this was the best way to prevent misapprehen- 
sions.^ On that day, they attended an informal meeting of 
several magistrates and deputies, and submitted to them 
four papers containing extracts from their instructions, and 
a fifth paper, written by them, on matters connected with 
the commission. They first protested against certain rumors 
and sayings of the time, and they proved by undeniable ar- 
gument, they said, that the commission, instead of having 
" been made under an old hedge," was issued by the king, 
was commended in letters by the king and the lord clian- 
cellor, and was brought over by tliree of the king's frigates; 
and, in the conclusion, they enlarged on the reasons that 

1 Report of the Commissioners is in Hutchinson Coll., 412. 

2 Answer of the General Court of Plymouth, May 4, 1665, Hutcliinson's Hist. 
Mass., i. 235. s Mass. Records, iv. part ii. 17 1. 



THE NEW-ENGLAND CONFEDERACY. 57 

occasioned the commission, and the wisdom of the mea- 
sure.i 

On the 3d of May, Richard Bellingham was elected gov- 
ernor, and Francis Willoughby deputy governor, and they 
were sworn into office; and among the assistants who took 
the oath on that day were Simon Bradstreet, Daniel Gookins, 
Richard Russell, Thomas Danforth, and John Leverett, — 
all honored names in the history of the colony."^ The Gen- 
eral Court met and recognized the reception of the five papers 
presented by the commissioners. On the 4th, a conference 
was held between the court and the commissioners, in which 
the court desired to know all liis majesty had commanded 
to be declared to them, that they might have their whole work 
before them ; to which the commissioners replied, that, when 
they received an answer to tlieir letter, they would then pre- 
sent the Court with more wovk. On the next day (May 5), 
the Court answered the five papers. They met the subject 
of the malicious reports, by saying, that it was extremely 
difficult, if not impossible, to trace those wild and absurd 
rumors to their first fountain, every reporter commonly con- 
tributing some addition to the stream ; but said that any 
who scandalized the commissioners deserved a severe pun- 
ishment. Tliey treated of other things, but were silent 
on the vital point of the validity of the commission.^ In 
the subsequent correspondence, continuing more than two 
weeks, the arrogance of power and the scorn of popular 
rights, on the part of the royal commissioners, were met by 
the General Court in a spirit of extreme jealousy of im- 
perilled liberty. As this was going on, tlie commissioners 
prepared to hear an appeal in tlie case of a notorious char- 
acter who had been justly banished from the colony. Tiiey 
had commanded all officers, civil and military, to refrain 
from molesting him, and thus interfered with the course of 
justice. The warrant issued by the commissioners in this 
case was declared by the court to be an infringement of 

1 Mass. Records, iv. part ii. 186. 2 ibid., 142. 8 Ibid., 188. 



58 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

their patent. A conference was held (May 11) between a 
connnittee of the court and the commissioners. The latter 
were aslced whetlier a jury would pass on the cases which 
they intended to hear, and their reply was in the negative ; 
that they sat as a court of oyer and terminer. The com- 
mittee urged, that, by the charter, the colonists were entitled 
to trial by jury ; and that it would be a great addition to 
their former sorrows if they were obliged " to submit them- 
selves, their lives and estates, and their liberties, far dearer 
than them both, to another authority whose rule was their 
own discretion." ^ At length the four commissioners came 
into the General Court, when Nichols, as their spokesman, 
said, " We are a court by his majesty's authority : tell 
us plainly and truly whether you will submit to the com- 
mission without any shuffling." The court calmly re- 
joined, that it could not see the grounds why it should be 
called to resolve such a question. The commissioners then 
imperiously demanded a positive answer to their question ; 
when the court replied (May 22), " We liumbly conceive it 
is beyond our line to declare our sense of the power, intent, 
or purpose of your commission. It is enough to acquaint 
you what we conceive is granted to us by his majesty's royal 
charter." 2 On the next day (May 23), the commissioners 
advised the assembly, that on the morrow, at nine o'clock 
in the morning, at the house of Captain Thomas Breedeu, 
they would sit as a board to hear the case of Thomas Deane 
and others, plaintiffs, against the governor and company and 
Joshua Scottow, defendants.^ The court immediately framed 
a declaration, and sent a copy of it to the commissioners.* As 
they did not recede, a herald, an hour before the time set 
for tiie hearing, appeared before Breeden's house, in Hano- 
ver Street : also a hundred or more of the inhabitants. A 
trumpet was sounded ; and, by order of the General Court, 
declaration was made to all the peo[)le of the colony in his 
majesty's name, and by the authority committed to tliem by 

1 Mass. Records, iv. part ii. 197. 2 ibid., 207. » Ibid., 208. i Ibid., 209. 



THE NEW-ENGLAND CONFEDEKACY. 59 

the royal charter, that, in observance of their duty to God 
and to his majesty, and the trust committed to them, they 
could not consent unto, nor give their approbation of, the 
proceedings of the commissioners ; neither could they coun- 
tenance any who should be their abettors.^ Tliis declara- 
tion was repeated in a similar form in two other places 
in the town. The trumpet gave no uncertain sound. 
This action was in the spirit of the historic influence of 
local self-government, in union with allegiance to the sover- 
eignty. It was Liberty claiming its rights under the Law. 

The commissioners, thus effectually thwarted, sent (May 24) 
two papers to the court. In one, they characterized the action 
of the court as opposition to the sovereignty, and referred 
the whole case to his majesty's wisdom. The other was a 
commentary, under twenty-six heads, on the book of gen- 
eral laws and liberties of the colony. I select only their 
dealing with self-government and union. They criticised 
the use in these laws of the terms " state," " council of state," 
and " commonwealth," and desired that these " indecent " 
expressions might be changed. They arraigned the con- 
federation as illegal, averring that there was no right 
conferred by the charter " to incorporate with the other 
colonies, nor to exercise any power by that association : 
both belonged to the king's prerogative."^ On leaving what 
to them was an inglorious field, the commissioners dis- 
charged a Parthian arrow, in the threat, that those who had 
contested their power would meet " the punishment which 
so many concerned in the late rebellion had met with in 
England." ^ In their report to the king, they arraigned 
in severe terms the colony as being commonwealth-like ; and, 
after stating that it had a college, they remarked, that it was 
to be feared " that this college might afford as many schismat- 
ics in the church, and the corporation as many rebels to the 
king, as formerly they have done, if not timely prevented." * 

1 Mass. Records, iv. part ii. 210. 2 ibid., 213. 

8 Chalmers, 387. * New- York Coll., Doc. iv. 112. 



60 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

The committee,^ who had guided the action of the General 
Court, prepared a narrative of their proceedings, which 
occupies over a hundred pages of the Colonial Records. 
This embodied the documents connected with the case, 
among which are the addresses which the Court sent to the 
King. In one of them, the General Court stated in a few 
words, their view of their Charter, of the limitations of their 
rights under it, and of the required test of loyalty as 
"subjects." They claimed "full and absolute power of 
governing all the people of this place," according to such 
laws as they should make, " being not repugnant to the 
laws of England." They averred that they had " above thirty 
years enjoyed the aforesaid power and privilege of govern- 
ment within themselves, as their undoubted right in the sight 
of God and man." They said, " We keep ourselves within 
our line, and meddle not with matters abroad. A just 
dependence upon and subjection to your majesty, according 
to our Charter, it is far from our hearts to disacknowledge. 
We so highly prize your favorable aspect, though at this 
great distance, as we would gladly do any thing that is in 
our power to purchase a continuance of it. . . . It is a great 
unhappiness to be reduced to so hard a case as to have no 
other testimony of our subjection and loyalty offered us but 
this ; viz., to destroy our own being, which nature teaches 
us to preserve ; or to yield up our liberties, which are far 
dearer to us than our lives, and which, had we any fear of 
being deprived of, we had never wandered from our fathers' 
house into these ends of the earth." ^ The report justifies 



1 On the 3d of May, 1665, the General Court ordered that Captain Gookin, Mr. 
Thomas Daiifurth, Mr. Edward Collins, Mr. William raik.s, and Lieutenant Hopestill 
Foster, be a committee to con.sider of the matters presented by the Commissioners 
to the Court, and to consider what action was necessary. On the same da}', Mr. 
Simon Bradstreet, Captain Daniel Gookin, Mr. Thomas Danforth, Captain Edward 
Johnson, Mr. Edward Jackson, Captain Richard Waldren, and Lieutenant Hopestill 
Foster, were a])pointed " to consider of all the papers delivered into this court by 
Colonel Richard Nichols, and the rest of his majesty's commissioners, and to pre- 
sent a full and meet answer unto the whole to this whole court." — Mass. Records, 
iv. (2), 146. 2 Mass. Records, iv. (2), 169-172. 



THE NEW-ENGLAND CONFEDERACY. 61 

the formation of the Confederacy in the following strain : 
" Considering that they were several colonies under one 
king, and came from their native country for one and the 
same end, and were here scattered at a great distance 
amongst the wild savages in a vast wilderness, had no walled 
towns or garrisons of soldiers for their defence, they appre- 
hended that the least they could do was to enter into a 
league of amity and union one with another, engaging, in 
case of any unjust and fresh assault made iipon any part 
by the natives, jointly to assist each other as the matter 
should require : this being the end of their confederating, 
as the articles signed by the general courts of all the colo- 
nies, in May, 1643, will plainly demonstrate, to the end, 
that, as our distance of place one from another rendered us 
weak, and laid us open to their rage and violence, so our 
union might be as well to them a terror as to us strength : 
and, through the goodness of God, we have hitherto had 
large experience of tlie great good that by this confederation 
hath redounded, not only to all his majesty's subjects here 
planted, but even to the natives themselves, it having been 
a means to prevent much trouble and bloodshed among 
themselves ; so that, although since that war some of them 
have sundry times made their attempts and put us to a con- 
siderable charge and trouble several ways, yet no massacre 
hath been among us from that day to this, blessed be God 
for it." ^ After this statement of the great fact of general 
security as a justification of the union, the report indignantly 
repelled the charge of having invaded the prerogative, aver- 
ring that to call the union usurping authority " was con- 
trary to the light of reason, tliat allows all whose journey's 
end is the same, and whose way lies together, to combine 
for their mutual help in all things common and just, with- 
out the least suspicion of taking upon them any usurped 
authority, whether it be by land or sea, which, therefore, 

1 Mass. Records, iv. (2), 231. 



G2 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

made it seem to be their special design to disunite the colo- 
nies, and so to bring ns unto ruin." ^ 

This remarkable state-paper exhibits the ability and the 
statesmanship of the colony in a favorable light. These brief 
citations show the clearness of its thought, the purity of its 
style, and the strength of its argument. It constitutes a 
clean political record. The action it narrates was not aimed 
against the sovereignty, but against an undeniable stretch 
of power by the administration which superseded, in many 
respects, the authority and powers granted by the charter ; 
and that action was prosecuted by the General Court, not in 
an obstinate or a perverse spirit, but in a modest and steady 
adherence to what they believed, and what really were, their 
just rights and privileges.^ There appears in this action 
an appreciation of the value of the right to make the lex loci, 
and of its proper sphere as subordinate to the supreme 
authority, while there is an earnest intention to fulfil every 
just obligation to the sovereignty. The position undoubt- 
edly is sound, that parts of a nation ought not to be suffered 
to form alliances with each other for rebellious or even for 
ambitious purposes ; Ijut the vindication of such a step is 
complete when the facts show tliat it is taken in the spirit 
of the primal duty of self-preservation. This was the case of 
the New-England Confederacy. 

The simple statement of the powers granted to the Com- 
mission is enough to condemn it. A writer, bitter against the 
republicanism of Massachusetts, though quick to see what 
touched England, remarks, that the Commission was liable 
to great objection, " because it might have been extended to 
affect English liberties, which no prerogative of the crown 
can abridge." ^ Another, of the same political school, writing 
m a historic spirit, judged that the local government " would 
not be thought culpable for refusing entirely to submit to the 
absolute authority of the commissions, which must have 

•1 Mass. Records, iv. (2), 234. 2 Hutchinson's Hist, ii. 256. 

8 Chalmers's Annals, 388. 



THE NEW-ENGLAND CONFEDERACY. 



63 



superseded their charter ; and, if this authority had been 
once admitted, they would have found it very difficult ever 
after to have ejected it." ^ This condemnation of the Com- 
mission is just ; and it is no less just to say, that the cour- 
age, dignity, and intelligence of the prominent actors in 
these scenes entitle them to be enrolled among the pioneer 
defenders of American liberty. 

The Confederacy, before the crown granted the charter to 
Connecticut, had passed through periods of serious dissen- 
sion. The commissioners of one or more of the colonies had 
threatened to dissolve the union ; and some of tlie provisions 
proved so unsatisfactory that amendments were proposed. 
No year, however, passed without a meeting of the commis- 
sioners. But the Confederacy lingered, rather than lived, 
after the blow it received by the incorporation of New Haven 
with Connecticut. Attempts were made to infuse into it 
new vigor by a renewal of the articles, and in the crisis of 
King Philip's War it proved to be of great usefulness ; 
but the meetings of the commissioners became more irregu- 
lar, and it disappeared when the charters of the colonies 
were declared to be vacated. Thus the Confederacy fell 
with the fall of local self-government.^ 



1 Hutchinson's Hist., i. 251. 

2 The following is a list of the meetings of the 

Boston, Sept. 7, 1643. 

Hartford, Sept. 5, 1644. 

Boston, July 28, 1645. 

Boston, Sept. 11, 1615. 

New Haven, Sept. 9, 1646. 

Boston, July 26. 1647. 

Plymouth, Sept. 7, 1648. 

Boston, July 23, 1649. 

Hartford, Sept. 5, 1660. 

New Haven, Sept. 4, 1651. 

Plymouth, Sept. 2, 1652. 

Boston, April 19, 1653. 

Boston, May 31, 1653. 

Boston, Sept. 1, 1653. 
Charlestown, June 17, 1654. 

Hartford, Sept. 7, 1654. 

New Haven, Sept. 5, 1655. 

Plymouth, Sept. 4, 1656. 

I have placed in this list an informal meeting, 



commissioners : — 




Boston, 


Sept. 3, 1657. 




Boston, 


Sept. 2,1658. 




Hartford, 


Sept. 1, 1659. 




New Haven 


Sept. 6,1660. 




Pljinouth, 


Sept. 5, 1661. 




Boston, 


Sept. 4,1662. 




Boston, 


Sept. 3, 1663. 




Hartford, 


Sept. 1, 1664. 




Hartford, 


Sept. 15, 1667. 




Boston, 


June 1, 1670. 




Plymouth, 


Sept. 5, 1672. 




Hartford, 


Aug. 21, 1673. 




Boston, 


Nov. 2, 1675. 




Hartford, 


Sept. 5, 1678. 




Plymouth, 


Mar. 20, 1679. 




Bosto^ 


Aug. 25, 1679. 




, 


Sept. 6, 1681. 




Hartford, 


Sept. 6, 1684. 




held on the 17th of June, 1654. 


at 



64 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

This combination of local government and of union was 
made before the colonists had attained to just conceptions 
of what should bo the basis of such a union. They were 
imbued with a spirit of jealousy concerning their local gov- 
ernments, not merely in reference to an interference by the 
supreme authority, but as to each other. The fraternal 
spirit between them as communities was feeble. The larger 
colony of Massachusetts evinced an overbearing spirit to- 
wards its neighbors ; Connecticut, when it got the power, 
assumed jurisdiction over New Haven in so autocratic a 
manner as to deepen in the people of the latter a sense 
of unprovoked wrong ; ^ and the three colonies had more of 
rebuke than of love for Rhode Island.^ Conviction as to 
fundamental principles is a necessary condition to a super- 
structure of law ; and this had not been reached. The 
powers reserved to each jurisdiction proved impracticable, 
and the provisions to promote the common welfare were 
crude. Notwithstanding these vital defects, the service 
which the Confederacy rendered was never forgotten : it 
was referred to in every period of the colonial age, and in 
seasons of peril there was a call for its revival. The em- 

Charlestown, by the commissioners from Connecticut and New Haven, duly author- 
ized to meet Robert Sedgwick and John Leverett, who held a commission from 
Oliver Cromwell, to consult with the commissioners of the four colonies in relation 
to an expedition against the Dutch. —Thurloe's State Papers, ii. 419. This is an 
interesting record. It was a custom for the commissioners to supply each colony 
with a copy of the records of their proceedings. — Winthrop, ii. 246. The larger 
part of the copy belonging to Massachusetts was destroyed by fire in 1747. Two 
copies were preserved, those of Connecticut and Plymouth. The latter is in the office 
of the Secretary of State of Massachusetts. Hazard printed, in 1794, from this 
copy, the records contained in his " Collections." In 1859, they were again printed 
in two noble quarto volumes, by the authoritj' of the State of Massachusetts, and 
edited by a skilful chirographer, Mr. David Pulsifer. Besides valuable illustrations 
from the Massachusetts Archives, this reprint contains records of several meet- 
ings which are omitted in the Plymouth copy; viz., those of September, 1652; 
August, 167.3; September, 1678; August, 1679; and September, 1684. They are re- 
printed from the fourth volume of the " Colonial Records of Connecticut," in which 
they were first printed by their editor, Mr. J. Hammond Trumbull. Neither contain 
the records preserved in Th»rloe's " State Papers." 

1 Palfrey's New England, ii. 546. 

2 The royal commissioners said that Rhode Island was generally hated by th« 
other colonies. — Report in Hutchinson's Coll., 412. 



THE NEW-ENGLAND CONFEDERACY. 65 

bodimciit of the idea of union was imperfect ; but the 
principle of the equality of the distinct jurisdictions, the 
inviolability of tlieir local governments, and the aim of pro- 
viding one system of law, securing to the people of all the 
colonies their rights, became fundamentals of a republican 
polity. 

When such was tlie situation of the colonies in relation 
to each other, and when the condition of political science 
was low, is it strange that the colonists held theories and 
took positions inconsistent witli their professions of alle- 
giance ? Tlie coinage of money, exemption from certain 
forms of law, and refusing appeals to England, were of 
this character. But a disposition to meet every just re- 
quirement of the crown is evinced in their state-papers. 
In a short time tliey gave up objectionable points, desisted 
from coining, issued writs in his majesty's name, took the 
oath of supremacy ; and even the appellate jurisdiction of 
the King in council came to be looked upon rather as a pro- 
tection than a grievance.^ Tlie present to the King of a 
ship-load of masts for the royal navy, and a general con- 
tribution to supply the West-India fleet with provisions, 
elicited from him a gracious acknowledgnasnt. Nor was 
the exercise of the powers of making war and peace incon- 
sistent with professions of allegiance, or an evidence of an 
assumption of sovereignty. The East-India Company, even 
when it exercised these powers of war and peace without 
the direct control of the crown, was not considered a sover- 
eignty, and " still less can it be so considered since it has 
been subjected to that control." ^ The New-England Con- 
federacy exercised these powers in subordination to the 
supreme power ; it steadily declined to form alliances with 
the Dutch ; and its vindication by the General Court of 
Massachusetts shows conclusively that the people did not 

1 Story's Commentaries, i. 163. See, on theories of allegiance, Hutchinson's 
Hist., i. 251-253. 

2 Wheaton's Elements of Internationnl Law, 27, Lawrence's edition. 

5 



66 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

regard their action as an assumption of pretensions incon- 
sistent with their condition as dependent colonies. Indeed, 
the idea that four small colonies, with a population of 
twenty-four thousand, formed this league to throw off their 
dependence on England, or entertained the design twenty 
years later, when their population might have been more 
than doubled, is absurd. They averred that they abhorred 
such a design. If, neglecting such disclaimers, the minis- 
ters of the crown, backed by the crown-lawyers, chose to 
base their policy on tlie misrepresentations of a faction, it 
was their folly and the beginning of a great blunder.^ 

1 In treating the subject of the New-England Confederacj', I have followed con- 
temporary authorities. The early annalists took substantially the same view of its 
spirit and objects. Bradford, in the " History of Plymouth Plantation," written 
from 1630 to 1650, and first printed in 1856, assigns (416), as the immediate cause of 
its formation, the hostile attitude of the Indians; Johnson, in the " Wonder Working 
Providence," written about 1650, and printed in 1654, gives (182) the same cause; 
Winthrop, in his " History of New England from 1630 to 1649," which remained in 
manuscript until 1790, contains (ii. 101) a full account of its origin, written in the 
spirit in which Bradford wrote, and adds to the causes the distractions in England ; 
and Morton, in the " New England's Memorial," first printed in 1669, copies (227, 
Davis's edition) from the Bradford MS., adding to the cause of Indian plottings, 
"divers other and more weighty reasons." Hubbard prepared, before 1682, his 
"General Historj- of New England," which remained in manuscript until 1815. He 
copied nearly word for word from the Winthrop MS., adding a few remarks of his own. 
Ogilby, in his "America," printed in 1671, uses Johnson's words. To pass over 
other writers, Hutchinson, in the first volume of his " History of Massachusetts," 
printed in 1765, states the facts as given in the Hubbard MS. (i. 126); adding that 
the Confederacy was countenanced by the authorities in England, and that notice of 
it was taken, without exception, in the letters of Charles II. Wynne, in his " Gen- 
eral History of the British Empire," printed in 1770 in London, remarks (i. 69) that 
in this league the colonists " erected themselves into a sort of republican govern- 
ment, though they acknowledged themselves subject to a limited monarchy." Gra- 
hame, in his " History of the United States," printed in London in 1836 (i. 268), 
remarks, in reference to the reproach cast on the colonists of " arrogating the rights 
of sovei'eignty in this transaction," that it was " a measure that could hardly be 
avoided," and that it was regarded neither " by themselves nor by their English rulers 
as indicating pretensions unsuitable to their condition." 

A different view was taken of this league bj' Chalmers, in his volume entitled 
" Political Annals of the present United Colonies," printed in London in 1780. He 
says that the New-England Confederacy (178) "established a complete system of 
absolute sovereignty." Robertson, in his " Histor}' of America," printed in England 
in 1788, saj-'s (Harper's edition, 446) that in this confederacy the colonists consid- 
ered themselves as " possessing all the rights of sovereignty, and free from the con- 
trol of any superior power." John Qiiincy Adams, in his discourse " on the New 
England Confederacj*," of May 19, 1843, states that the league was "the exercise 



THE NEW-ENGLAND CONFEDERACY. 67 

I cannot but think that much error has crept into Ameri- 
can history by not keeping in view the difference between 
opposition to the measures of an administration and resist- 
ance to the supreme power of the empire or to the sover- 
eignty. The immigrants, in spite of what they had suffered 
in tlieir native land, bore towards it a noble affection, re- 
ceiving its stripes as from a mother. This affection is seen 
in the feeling exhibited by the Pilgrims when in Holland, 
who grieved at living in a place not under the protection 
of England, and at the thought that there was danger they 
might lose their language and even their name. It is seen 
in the tenderness of Higginson's adieu to his native land, 
when he exclaimed, " Farewell dear England ! Farewell 
the church of God in England, and all the Christian friends 
there." It is seen in the parting address of the Winthrop 
company, who said they went with tears in their eyes, and 
sadness in their hearts. This feeling was expressed hi a 
touching discourse spoken in New England and printed in 
London : " There is no land that claims our name but Eng- 
land : we are distinguished from all the nations in the 
world by the name English. There is no potentate breath- 
ing that we call our dread sovereign but King Cliarles ; 
nor laws of any land have civilized us but England's. 
There is no nation that calls us countrymen but the Eng- 
lish. Brethren ! did we not there draw our first breath ? 
Did not the sun first shine there upon our heads ? Did not 
that land first bear us, even that pleasant island, — but for 
sin I would say that garden of the Lord, that paradise ? 
And how have they always listened after our welfare, ebbing 
and flowing in their affections with us ? How do they (I 
mean all this while multitudes of well-affected persons 

of sovereign power in its highest attributes;" but remarks, that " the compact of 
the New England colonies, without the sanction of their sovereign, was yet not 
against him." Palfrey, in his •' History of New England " (i. 630), printed in 1858, 
says " the Confederation was no less than an act of absolute sovereignty on the part 
of the contracting States." Bancroft, in his " History of the United States " (i. 121), 
co'ncides with the views of the early historians. 



68 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

there) talk of New Eiiglaiul with delight! How much 
nearer heaven do some of their cliarities account this land 
than any other place they hear of in the world ! Such is 
their good opinion of us. How have some among them 
desired to die, if they might not be vouchsafed to live in 
this laud ? And when sometimes a New-England man re- 
turns thither, how is he looked upon, looked after, received, 
entertained, the ground he walks upon beloved for his 
sake, and the house held tlie better where he is ? How 
are his words listened to, laid np, and related frequently 
when he is gone ? Neither is any love or kindness hold too 
much for such a man." ^ 

This outburst of affection was for England as their native 
land, or the British Empire, which was regarded as the 
protector of the local liberties. Warm attaclnnent to both 
were elements of the historic life that was unfolding.^ 
Happily the growth of this life was marked, and may be 
traced. Even the foreshadowing of America is an interest- 
ing feature of its early annals. It was in ancient times a 
speculation iu which philosophy indulged, that great lands 
were to be discovered. The poet saw them in his visions. 
The definite thought of Strabo of the existence of two more 
inhabited lands ; Plato's fable of the sunken island of At- 
lantis ; the " venient annis " of Seneca,^ forctcllijig that 

1 New England's Teares for Old England's Feares, by William Hooker. 1641. 

2 John Adams (Works, x. 282), in alluding to the "habitual affection for Eng- 
land " in the colonial nge, -''ays, in a letter written in 1818, that " no affection could be 
more sincere." Samuel Adams, in a letter written to Charles Thomson, in 1774 
(Life of Warren, 232), says, " Would to God all, even our enemies, knew the warm 
attachment we have for Great Britain ! " 

8 The verses of Seneca, in the Antwerp edition, are: — 

" Venient annis 
Seculasoris; qiiibus Ocoanus 
Vincula rerum laxpt, et ingens 
I'ateat tellus, Tipliysque nouos 
Detegat orbes. nee sit terris 
Vltinia Thule." 

Seneca's verses were quoted in the first work of note in the English languasje 
on America, — the " Decades of the West Indies," translated from the Sp'inish by 
Kichard Eden, and printed in London in 1555. It is cited in a communication by 



THE NEW-ENGLAND CONFEDERACY. 69 

another Typhis would discover new worlds ; and other say- 
ings, — were collected and mused upon.- Columbus knew 
of them, and turned them to good account. They served to 
inspire the soul of the navigator, and " to convince mon- 
arclis of the expediency of a costly enterprise." 

Tims America, like the unknown quantity in algebra, 
helped to solve the problem of its own existence. As the 



Francesco Lopes, and is thus rendered: "There shall comme worldes in late 
yeeres, in the which the ocean shall unlose the bondes of thynges nnd a great lande 
shall appeare. Also Tj'phis (that is, nauigation) shall discover new worlds and Thyle 
shall not be the furthest lande." The remark is in the margin: "Ishind was in 
owlde time cauled Thyle as somme thinke." On Mercator's map of the world of 
1569, the names "If lant" and " Thule " denote different parts of one island. On 
Behaine's famous globe of 1492 is " Ysland." This, at that time, was " the farthest 
Jande." Typhis was the helmsman of the "Argo" in the expedition of the golden 
fleece. The poet in vision saw a future navigator, who, in the adventurous spirit of 
Typhis, would " discover new worlds." The words of Plato, Strabo, Seneea, and 
others (Cosmos, ii. 261, Bohn's edition), served to persuade monarchs to engage in 
expensive voyages. 

Willes, in the pi'eface to his edition of "Eden," printed in 1577, after dwelling on 
Plato's story of the "Island of Athlantides," quotes the verses of Seneca, which he 
renders as follows : — 

" In late yeeres newe worldes shalbe founde, 
And newe landes shal then appeare on the grounde. 

When Typhis nauigation newe worlds shal fynde out, 
Then shal not Thyle for last be left out. 

For then .=hal the ocean dL^isolue his large bandes, 
And shewe foorth neiue worldes, regions, and landes." 

Seneca'.s verses were quoted by Lord Bacon in his " Essays," printed in 1597, and 
termed " A prophecy of the discovery of America; " and by Acosta, in his " History 
of the Indies." In the trans'ation of the latter from the Spanish, printed in London 
in 1604, it is (38) thus rendered: — 

" An age shall come, ere ages ende. 
Blessedly strange and strangely blest, 
When our Sea farre and neere or 'prest, 
His shoare shall farther yet extend. 

Descryed then shall a large Land be, 
By this profound seas navigiitiou. 
An other World, an other Nation, 
All men shall then discovered see. 

Thdle accounted heretofore 
The worldes extreme, the Northerne bound 
Shall be when Southwest parts be found, 
A neerer Isle, a neighbour shoare." 

Seneca's lines were placed by Irving on the titlepage of his " Life and Voyages 
of Christopher Columbus," printed in 1828. 



70 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

time drew near for its discovery, the modern Florentine, 
Piilci, wrote, as rendered by Prescott, — 

» His bark 
The daring mariner shall urge far o'er 
The western wave, a smooth and level plane. 



Men shall descry another hemisphere, 

Since to one common centre all things tend; 

So earth, by curious mystery divine 

Well balanced, hangs amidst the starry spheres. 

At our Antipodes are cities, states, 

And thronged empires, ne'er divined of yore. 

But see ! the sun speeds on his western path 

To glad the nations with expected light." 

At the period when the wonders made known by Colum- 
bus and his companions kindled enthusiasm, the ancient 
sayings were copied into the earliest accounts of America, 
and called testimonies and prophecies. For more than a 
century, the general exultation had been for sucli achieve- 
ments as conquest, dominion, or the discovery of gold. 
During the period of extended colonization in North Amer- 
ica, the exultation rose into a nobler strain. The relations 
through the press were of population and wealth unexam- 
pled in the annals of the world. Combined with these mo- 
tives was the high aim, to use a term contained in charters 
and a succession of papers, of " The Propagation of the 
Gospel." Tliere then commenced a new series of poetic 
visions and of philosophic speculations, prefiguring the 
future of America ; and often by the best minds of the age. 
Their burden was not of conquest, gold, or dominion ; but 
it was of human advancement. The great Swedish states- 
man, Oxenstiern, averred that the colonization of America 
would prove beneficial to Europe, to the civilized world, 
and to Christendom. Herbert wrote, — 

" Religion stands on tiptoe in our land, 
Ready to pass to the American strand." 1 

1 The lines of Herbert were first published in " The Temple," in 1633. The 
vice-chancellor objected to their publication; but, on consenting, said, "I hope the 
world will not take him to be an inspired prophet." — British Poets, 247, Little & 



THE NEW-ENGLAND CONFEDEEACY. 71 

And, thirty years later, Cowley sang to his countrymen, — 

" Your rising glory you shall view: 
Wit, learning, virtue, discipline of war, 
Shall for protection to your world repair, 
And fix a long illustrious empire there. 



Late destiny shall high exalt your reign, 

Whose pomp no crowds of slaves, a needless train, 

Nor gold (the rabble's idol) shall support, 

Like Montezunie's or Guanapaci's court; 

But such true grandeur as old Rome maintained, 

When fortune was a slave, aiK^ virtue reigned." ^ 

Brown's edition. These lines were quoted by R. B. (Robert Burton) in "The Eng^ 
lish Empire in America" (1685), p. 106, as "the prophecy of the pious, learned, and 
Honorable Mr. George Herbert, Orator to the University of Cambridge." Thej' were 
early read in New England. — Proceedings Mass. Hist. Soc., 1866-7, 461, 464. 

1 "Book of Plants," printed in 1668, in Latin. Rendered into English by N. 
Tate and others in 1711, fourth edition. These lines were circulated freely in the 
American newspapers (Essex Gazette, Feb. 21) of 1775, as a prophecy of America. 



CHAPTER III. 

How Aggression on the Principle of Local Self-government 
LED TO Revolution and Inter-colonial Corresi'Ondence, and 
jiow A Common Peril oc*asioned a Congress. 

1684 TO 1690. 

The New-England Confederacy recognized the equality of 
the colonies that were parties to it, and the inviolability 
of their local governments ; but the provisions designed to 
promote the common welfare were a crude embodiment of 
the union element. The Confederacy rendered valuable 
service in peace and in war ; and it lasted until the local 
governments were overthrown by the supreme power, and 
their functions were consolidated into a despotism. This 
prepared the way for revolution and for inter-colonial cor- 
respondence. A common peril occasioned a general con- 
gress. 

These tendencies to union are seen forty-six years (1689) 
after the formation of the New-England Confederacy. - The 
general maps of North America at that period assign to 
France the vast territory beginning at the northern bounda- 
ries of New England, and extending along the country 
watered by the St. Lawrence River, the great lakes, and the 
Mississippi River, which had lately been discovered and ex- 
plored. The claim of France included Acadia, Canada, Hud- 
son's Bay, Newfoundland, one half of Maine, of Vermont, 
and of New York, and the Valley of the Mississippi as far as 
the Rio Bravo del Norte.^ The English colonics were de- 
lineated as occupying a narrow belt of land on the Atlantic 

^ Bancroft {iii. 175) gives a view of the French cKiims, and (iii. 177) states the 
population of the continent. 



INTER-COLONIAL CORRESPONDENCE AND A CONGRESS. 73 

coast, between Florida on the south and Acadia on the 
north.i French statesmen were carrying out a magnificent 
scheme to secure dominion in North America. Yet, not- 
withstanding all the stimulus the French cabinet had given 
to discovery and colonization, the French census of 1688 
for the North-American continent, gave a population of only 
eleven thousand two hundred and fifty-nine. The English 
Government rather depressed than encouraged the colo- 
nists ; and yet they had reached -a population of two hun 
dred thousand. 

Twelve of the thirteen original colonies were then (1688) 
founded. Contemporary descriptions, printed in separate 
tracts, or in general compilations, serve to show their prog- 
ress, relative importance, and reputation. Carolina was 
already famed for its product of rice ; but, including the 
great territory subsequently cj^lled Georgia, it contained only 
about eight thousand Europeans. They were divided be- 
tween the flourishing colony of South Carolina, of which 

1 I have stated above (p. 34) that a plate of a map of America, engraved in 
1606, was used in English publications down to 1659. In 1671, John Ogilb}', "his 
llajesty's Cosmographer " and "Geographic Printer," published at London his 
"America: being the latest and most accurate description of the New World," &c., 
in a folio volume. It has what is called " a new and accurate map of America," 
which has the names N. Plymouth, New England, New York, Maryland, Vir- 
ginia, Carolina, and Florida ; but does not delineate their boundaries. The greater 
part of the map is nearlj' a fac dmih of the be.iutifully engraved map of N. Vis- 
Bcher. The ornaments on both are the same. Both have opposite the Virginia 
coast " JIare Virginium." Ogilby's work contains several local maps, as of Vir- 
ginia, New York, &c. The next elaborate English publication on the geography 
of America was published bj' Richard Blome in 1682. It has a long titlepage, com- 
mencing " Cosmography and Geography in two parts," &c , from " Monsieur Sanson." 
This volume (in folio) litis a mnp entitled " A new mapp of America Septentrionale, 
Designed by Monsieur Sanson, Geographer to the French King and rendered into 
English and illustrated by Richard Blome. By his majesty's special command." 
It has New England, Maryland, Virginia, Carolina, and Florida. The fourth edi- 
tion was published in 1693, and has the same map. The rivers in the region of 
Florida are similar to the Sanson maps of 1669 and 1657. The Mississippi River is 
not laid down, though at that time (1693) maps of it had been p inted The com- 
pilations of Robert Burton (16S5) .ind of Robert Morden (1700) have only small 
maps. The map nearest to the date of 1690, of value, which I have met, is that of 
De Lisle (1700), the celebrated French geographer. This is what it purports toJbe, 
a new map. It has the Mississippi River and delineations of New England, New 
York, I'ennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, Carolina, and Florida. 



74 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Charleston was the chief settlement, and the settlements 
in the county of Albemarle, which were the beginnings of 
the colony of North Carolina.^ Carolina was receiving large 
accessions of the persecuted Huguenots. The splendid do- 
main of Virginia, celebrated for its crops of tobacco, had a 
population of over fifty thousand, who lived on plantations 
far apart from each other ; the nearest approach to a town 
being a cluster of buildings located around " The State 
House " at Jamestown. They had neither printing-press, 
public school, nor college. It was written of Virginia, that, 
" as it came out of the hands of God, it was certainly one of 
the best countries in the world ; " but as it respected well- 
built towns, well-educated children, and an industrious and 
thriving people, it was certainly " one of the poorest, misera- 
blest, and worst countries in all America that was inhabited 
by Christians." 2 In Maryland, also, the people did not 
gather in towns. This colony invited settlers by promising 
" toleration in religion to all who professed faith in Christ."^ 
Pennsylvania had been founded only six years. The large 
influence of William Penn and the mild virtues of Quaker- 
ism attracted emigrants. The city of Philadelphia was 
described as increasing rapidly, and as a place scarcc'ly to 
be paralleled for a favorable location. New Jersey, then 
divided into East and West New Jersey, and its neighbors, 
" The Delaware Counties," were characterized as having 
air, soil, ports, and harbors not inferior to those of any other 
colony. Several towns had been founded, which were said 
to be in a flourishing condition. These four prosperous 
colonies had reached a population of forty-seven thousand. 
The colony of New York contained twenty thousand inhabi- 
tants. The city was described as having five hundred houses. 



1 "At a general court that was held the 28th of Novemher, 1694, the list of taxa- 
bles did not exceed 787." — Williamson's North Carolina, i. 144. 

5 1 Mass. Hist. Coll., v. 125. An account of Virginia written about 1696. 

8 This was said in "The English Enijiire in America" by (R. B.) Robert Bur- 
ton. This compilation contains Herbert's prophecy. See p. 70. 



INTER-COLONIAL CORRESPONDENCE AND A CONGRESS. 75 

built of fair Dutch brick, and as being famous for pleasure 
and great business activity. The New-England colonies had 
a population of seventy-five thousand. Plymouth continued 
to be a backward colony ; Connecticut and Rhode Island 
had become models of peace, progress, and self-government ; 
Massachusetts had purchased the Province of Maine, and 
was rapidly growing in importance ; New Hampshire, con- 
stituted in 1(380 an independent colony, had but four towns.-* 
These colonies enjoyed the educational influences of the 
town, the public school, the college, the congregational 
church, the public meeting, and the general assembly. The 
spirit of commercial enterprise was so active, and the cause 
of religion, as viewed by earnest souls, seemed in comparison 
to be so languid, that the generation who were about leaving 
the stage mourned over the departing glory of New Eng- 
land, and prophesied that she had seen her best days. But 
it can now be seen, that, in the inner life of religion, the 
original spirit was only accepting new forms. New England 
outwardly was moving forward with a steady step towards 
wealth and power, with freedom as the enlivening principle 
of its pursuits, and the accumulation of property, landed 
and personal, as the invigorating nerve of its enterprise.^ 
The twelve colonies, viewed as a whole, were characterized 
as having " arrived to a figure so considerable as might 
attract the emulation of neighboring potentates, — the golden 
Peru hardly affordhig so great a treasure to the Catholic 
crown as their most flourishing plantations produce to the 
crown of England." ^ /- 

This glance at the twelve colonies, " The English Em- 
pire in America," * serves to show their relative impor- 

^ Bancroft (ii. 452) has a careful estimate of the population of each of the twelve 
colonies in 1688. He estimates the total at 200,000. Chalmers (Hist, of Revolt, 
i. 217) estimates it at 250,000. 

2 The words are in " Chalmers's Annals." 

8 Blome, in the preface to his ''Present state of His Majesty's Isles and Territo- 
ries in America." 1687. 

< This is the title of a volume printed in London in 1685. 



76 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

tance at the interesting period of tlie Revolution of 1688. 
Tliey were applying the principle of local self-government. 
It was, under their situation, a necessity. It was not prac- 
ticable for the parliament to legislate on the various little 
wants of each colony, — to care for the making of roads, the 
building of churches, and the maintenance of schools, or to 
frame a remedy for the inconveniences or evils that a change 
of circumstances daily brought forth. ^ All this was pro- 
vided for under the general powers of government conveyed 
by the crown to each colony, either directly, as in the char- 
ters which were granted to Massachusetts, Connecticut, and 
Rhode Island, or through the medium of the proprietors of 
the soil, as in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jer- 
sey, and the two Carolinas, or by instructions sent by the 
crown to the governors, as in Virginia, New Hampshire, 
and New York, which were called royal provinces. Each 
colony manifested a similar spirit of freedom in exercising 
these powers. In each the popular will was expressed 
through the representative assembly. Each adopted so 
much of the English statute law, and claimed the benefit 
of so much of the common law, as seemed to be suited to 
the condition of its inhabitants. While all recognized their 
subordination to the acts of parliament which expressly 
named the colonies, and bound them as integral parts of the 
empire in a general system framed for all, and for the bene- 
fit of all, they also recognized the common law, which 
united the colonics to the parent State by the general ties 
of allegiance and dependency.^ In this spirit each com- 
munity framed its local law. Each was strongly attached 
to the form which it had adopted, and thought it to be 
the best.2 j^ e^ch there was a State without nobles, and 

1 Clialmei's's Annals, 4o. 

2 Chalmers (Annals, 140) says, " A colony . . . may abrogate that part of the com- 
mon law which is unsuitable to its new situation; may repeal the statute law wherein 
it is inapplicable to its condition." — See Storj-'s Commentaries, i. 148. 

8 Andros reported in 1678, " I do not know that there is any superiority of one 
colony over aaotlicr, but all [are] independent, though [they] generally ;jive place to 



INTER-COLONIAL CORRESPONDENCE AND A CONGRESS. 77 

a Church without a bishop. In each the people were 
governed by magistrates whom they selected, and by the 
laws which they framed.^ Thus organized, the twelve 
colonies contained the elements of our country as it is 
to-day .2 

This self-government was regarded by tlie supreme power 
as a growth of republicanism, as it really was. To meet 
and to check this element, the Clarendon ministry (1660 to 
1667), as has been stated, devised the scheme of bringing 
the colonies more under the control of the prerogative ; and 
this continued to be the. policy of the Government. On the 
fall of Clarendon, the administration known as the Cabal 
wielded, for six years (1667 to 1673), the sovereignty. The 
Council for Foreign Plantations was enlarged (March 20, 
1671), and the Duke of York and several high personages 
were created members. Tlie Danby ministry succeeded the 
Cabal (1673 to 1679), when the Cavaliers obtained com- 
plete power. During this period, Charles II. gave Virginia 
away to two of his courtiers for thirty-one years,^ and he re- 
newed (1674) the Duke of York's patent. He dissolved 
(Dec. 24, 1674) the Council for Foreign Plantations, and 
appointed (March 12, 1675) a committee of the Privy 
Council to consider matters connected with the American 
colonies. They were directed to sit once a week, and report 
their proceedings to the council. This arrangement con- 
tinued not only till the close of the reign of Charles, but 
througli that of his successor.* 

The subject of American affairs occupied the attention of 
the Government largely during this period. The several 



and are most influenced by the Massachusetts, both in State and religion. I do 
not find but the generality of the magistrates and people are well affected to the 
king and kingdom; but most, knowing no other government than their own, think 
it best, and are wedded to and oppiniate for it." 

1 Rufus Clioate (Life and Writings, i. 379) uses these terms in describing 
Geneva. 2 Bancroft, ii. 45-3. 8 Burk's Virginia, App., 44. 

4 The Introduction to volume three of the " Documents relating to the Colonial 
Historj- of New York " has an account of the boarJs of trade and plantations. 



78 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

administrations shrunk from a decisive interference with the 
internal affairs of the colonies. When it was judged that 
events required bold action, the debates in the Privy Coun- 
cil were earnest. " The question was considered thoroughly 
whetlier the council should introduce there the same gov- 
ernment that was established in Englaiid, or should subject 
the colonists to the rule of a governor and council, who 
should have all authority in their hands, without being 
obliged to observe any other laws than those which should 
be prescribed in England." In this debate, one of the 
members, the Marquis of Halifax, maintained " with vehe- 
mence, that there was no reason to doubt, that the same 
laws under which the people of England lived ought only 
to be established in a country composed of Englishmen. 
He dwelt strongly on this point, and did not omit other 
reasons to prove that absolute government is neither so 
happy nor so secure as that which is tempered by laws, and 
which bounds the authority of a prince. He exaggerated 
the inconvenience of sovereign power, and declared squarely 
that he could not agree to live under a king who should 
have it in his power to take when he pleased the money 
which he [Halifax] had in his pocket." This view was 
opposed by all the other ministers. They held that his 
majesty " could and ought to govern countries so far re- 
moved from England in tlie manner which should appear 
to him the most proper to maintain the country in the 
state in which it is, and to increase still more its strength 
and riches. It was resolved that the governor and council 
should not be obliged to call assemblies from the country 
to make taxes and to regulate other important matters, but 
that they should do what tliey should judge proper, render- 
ing an account only to his Britannic majesty." ^ This was 
the opinion of the Duke of York. He held that the colo- 
nies did not need general assemblies, and ought not to have 

1 Barillon to Louis XIV. London, Dec. 7, 1684. in Fox's -Tames TI App vii 



INTER-COLONIAL CORRESPONDENCE AND A CONGRESS. 79 

them.^ This view prevailed. It was determined to create 
a government by a general governor and council. Before 
this conclusion had been reached, it was resolved to enforce 
rigidly the Navigation Act. Charles II. was carrying out 
this policy at the time of his deatli (1685). -His successor, 
James II., with a bold hand, executed the scheme of gov- 
erning the colonies which lie had done much to inaugurate. 
Its opponent in the Privy Council, the Marquis of Halifax, 
was regarded as unfit to hold power, and was dismissed 
from office. It is a curious fact that, at so early a period, a 
question relating to American liberty, and even to American 
taxation, was considered to be a test of principles, friendly 
or adverse to arbitrary power in England. In truth, 
Charles James Fox remarks, " Among the several contro- 
versies which have arisen, there is no other wherein the 
natural rights of man on the one hand, and the authority 
of artificial institutions on the other," are " so fairly put in 
issue." ^ 

This scheme, involving a change in the basis of the local 
governments of the colonics, pursued with more or less vigor 
during the reigns of Charles and James, caused a world of 
anxiety and confusion. It was the key to their political 
history at that period. Despotic power, like the wolf in the 
fable, stood at the head-springs of the current of American 
liberty, and cliarged those who were drinking below with 
roiling the waters. The royal tactics were of a low order. 
Officials sought pretexts on which to frame indictments 
against the colonies for violations of their charters, to be 
used in the courts, that a foregone conclusion might be 
carried out under the forms of justice. Edward Randolph 
was one of them. Busy, vigorous, and unscrupulous, he 
seemed to the colonists to be the originator of their trou- 
bles. He was called " the evil genius of New England." 
But, as he went back and forth across the Atlantic, laden with 

1 New- York Col. Doc, iii. 230. 

2 Hiitory of James II., by Charles James Fox (London edition), 60 



80 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

calumnies and falsehoods^ about the colonists, he was sim- 
ply doing the work of " his gracious master," tlie Duke of 
York, and of the set of profligates who then wielded the 
supreme power. Their arbitrary scheme was the proximate 
cause of the political troubles. The colonial agents in Lon- 
don were first advised that great designs were maturing 
against colonial liberties.^ At length, they were officially 
informed, tliat his majesty had concluded to unite under one 
government " all the English territories in America from 
Delaware Bay to Nova Scotia." In the general consolidation 
of the northern colonies that followed, the people of Rhode 
Island and of Connecticut, who welcomed and recognized the 
authority of the royal commissioners in 1665, fared no better 
than the people of Massachusetts, who refused to submit to 
that illegal commission. The colonies of New Jersey and 
Delaware, like those of New England, were obliged to meet 
writs of quo warranto against their charters. Nor did Penn- 
sylvania, Virginia, and the two Carolinas escape from an 
arbitrary interference with their internal affairs. In all the 
colonies popular functions were absorbed by the crown. It 
appointed local magistrates and county commissioners. It 
assumed the minute detail of administration. It conferred 
on a " governor and council " the function of legislation 
and taxation. Town-meetings for political purposes were 
forbidden. Tlie representative assemblies were either abro- 
gated or restricted. The object avowed in official papers 
was " to bring the colonies to a united and nearer depend- 
ence on the crown." ^ This line of proceeding was an 



1 Randolph, in a communication to the committee of the Privy Council (1676), 
states, thtit the inhabitants of the colonies of New Plymouth, Connecticut, New 
Hampshire, and JSIaine, were in favor of "scttlino; a general government for the 
whole country," and wore "desirous of submitting to a general governor;" on 
which Hutchinson (Coll., 490) says, " Not one niau in a hundred throughout the 
governments then desired it." 

2 John Knowles, in a letter dated April 16, 1674 (Hutchinson's Coll., 447), ad- 
vised Governor Leverett that tiiere was "a great design on foot for the regulation of 
New England." 

8 Randolph's letter to the committee of the Privy Council, Aug. 18, 1685 ; in Rhode 



INTER-COLONIAL CORRESPONDENCE AND A CONGRESS. 81 

attempt to carry out a theory, regardless of the liabits and 
temper of tlie people ; and that theory was absolutism. 

This exercise of absolute power roused a spirit of opposi- '^ 
tion in all the colonies. Tliey did not act in concert. They ' 
did not put forth the republican theory as the basis of tlieir 
action. On the contrary, their prejudices in favor of monar- 
cliy often appear in tlieir utterances.^ They found themselves 
subjected to fitful^, irregular, and vexatious stretches of 
power. Tlieir aim, in tlieir defence of their rights and liber- 
ties, was ever distinct and practicable : for it was simply the 
defence of a right to mould the local polity. Their claim, 
that taxes should be imposed by their representative assem- 
blies, was maintained with great force. A noble argument 
in behalf of New Jersey, and against an illegal tax, is based 
on principles, and even contains phrases, similar to those of 
the revolutionary era. It maintained that " it was a funda- 
mental in their constitution and government, that the King 
of England could not justly take his subjects' goods without 
their consent." ^ V 

The tyranny of James II. had fallen upon his English 
and his transatlantic subjects alike : neither were of a tem- 
per tamely to submit to it, and both were delighted to wel- 
come the advent of William and Mary.^ When the report 
reached Boston that the Prince of Orange had landed in 
England, an uprising against the existing rule was planned 
and consummated. The general-governor. Sir Edmund An- 

Island Col. Records, iii. 178. He says that he had served three writs upon the 
proprietors of East and West New .lersey and Delaware. An Order of Council of 
Jul}' 15, 1685, named five quo wan-antos. 

1 Governor Hinkley, of Plymouth, in a letter to the Lords of the Privy Council, 
April 24, 1685 (4 Mass. Hi-t. Coll., v. 135), in describing the proclamation in that 
colony of James II. says, " I have not observed the like assembly tojiether amongst 
us, as if all were ambitiously desirous of demonstrating the natural and innnte prin- 
ciple of loviilty engraven on their hearts to the crown of England." 

■•2 The great argument of New Jersey of 1680 against an arbitrary tax imposed 
by Andros, the governor of New York, under the commission of the Duke of York, 
is in Smith's " New Jersey," 117. 

8 The words in the text are those of Viscount Bury, in the "Exodus of the 
Western Nations," i. 391, 396, printed in 1865. 

6 



82 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

dros, and some of his associates, were imprisoned ; and a 
provisional government, in the name of William and Mary, 
was established. The venerable Simon Bradstreet, formerly 
the governor, was the first name in the commission. The 
revolution extended to the Carolinas. In all the colonies, 
their right of local government had been violated. In all, 
William and Mary were joyfully proclaimed. 

Tliere was then a period of confusion and of transition. 
In six of the colonies, the people, either under old forms of 
law, or acting by methods arising out of the necessities of 
their situation, in the name of William and Mary, designated 
their governors; namely, in Massachusetts, Simon Bradstreet, 
eighty-seven years of age, and identified with every period 
of the history of the colony ; in Plymouth, Thomas Hinckley ; 
in Connecticut, Robert Treat ; in Rhode Island, Henry Bull, 
an Antinomian ; in New York, Jacob Leisler as lieutenant- 
governor ; and in South Carolina, Seth Sothel as governor. 
In New Jersey and in North Carolina so much confusion 
^prevailed that -there were hardly regular governments. In 
Pennsylvania, the government continued under the old 
form. In Maryland, the popular party ruled through a 
convention. In Virginia, the royal governor being in Eng- 
land, the government was in the hands of the council, of 
which the president was Nathaniel Bacon, a popular favor- 
ite. New Hampshire, on the petition of its towns, was 
re-united to Massachusetts until the pleasure of the king 
should be known. The people were not unanimous in their 
action. A party held, that, as this resumption of tlie old 
governments was done without tlie sanction of the supreme 
authority, it was in opposition to and in contempt of the 
crown, and was really rebellion. ^ To this it was replied, 
that the proceedings were in the name and for the cause 
of William and Mary.^ It was a period of angry crimina- 

1 New- York Col. Doc, iii. 352. 

2 It is said, in " The Revolution in New England Justified," that the people, in 
seizing and securing the governor, did no more than was done in England, in Hull, 
Dover, ami Plymouth. 



INTER-COLONIAL COREESPONDENCE AND A CONGRESS. 83 

tioii, of hot words, and of rash acts. If the people's rio-ht 
to election was fiercely contested, it was ably and zealously 
defended. The determined spirit of the popular party was 
illustrated in a significant declaration of Governor Treat, 
of Connecticut. When the validity of his government was 
challenged, lie said, "that tlie people had put him hi, and 
he had ventured all -he had above his shoulders on this 
account, and therefore he would maintain it." ^ Such was 
the political situation when the colonies received the Cir- 
cular Letter of the Privy Council, announcing the accession 
of William and Mary, directing their proclamation, and sig- 
nifying their pleasure, " that all men being in offices of 
government should so continue until their majesty's fur- 
ther pleasure be known." ^ 

No colony had suffered more from arbitrary power than 
New York. The popular party here found a champion in 
Jacob Leisler. He was a native of Frankfort, in Germany, 
and emigrated as a soldier to New Amsterdam in 1660. Four 
years afterwards, he was a successful merchant. In 1683, 
he was appointed one of the commissioners of a court of 
admiralty.^ On several occasions, he evinced a bold spirit 
in acting against the set who were in power, and, by order 
of Aiidros, was imprisoned, preferring the jail to the aban- 
donment of what he considered a principle.* He was the 
captain of one of the five military companies which composed 
the defensive force of New York. When the people over- 
threw the government established by James II., they flocked 
to Leisler's door. At their request, he placed himself at 
their head, and took command at the fort ; and subsequently 
accepted an appointment of lieutenant-governor from " a 
committee of safety," composed of delegates from the sev- 

1 Bulkcley's " Will of Doom," Conn. Col. Records, iii 460. 

2 This Circular Letter of the Privy Council was dated Feb. 19, 1689, and, in 
relation to persons holding office, is nearly a copy of the circular sent to the colo- 
nies on the accession of James II. 

8 New-York Doc. Hist., 21 : Introductorj'. 

* Hoflftnan, in Sparks's Am. Biography, 2d series, iii. 191. 



84 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

eral towns and the city. Under this authority, with the 
committee as his council, he wiekled the government. He 
took possession of the fort at Albany. His education was 
limited, and he was rough and passionate ; hut he had cour- 
age, enterprise, and energy, and, under strong impulses, 
acted generously and honestly. His zeal for William and 
Mary rose into enthusiasm. 

Leisler had to meet an active, powerful, and virulent 
party, who, not content with hurling at him the foulest 
words, defied his authority. He promptly addressed letters 
to the other colonies, informing them with great particu- 
larity of the proceedings of the friends of William and Mary 
in New York, and sending to them copies of the declarations 
and other papers which the occasion had elicited.^ I need 
only state, that, in relating the difficulties he had to en- 
counter, he declared that he intended to exercise power no 
longer than until he should receive orders from the Prince 
of Orange ; and that, meantime, if he could receive the 
advice and approbation of the adherents of the Prince, and 
" if the colony would join with the whole country," it would 
discourage tlie adverse party, who were daily sowing sedi- 
tion. ^ This was an invitation extended to the colonies to 
correspond on political subjects, and to unite in support of 
a common cause. 

These letters elicited from several of the colonies a cor- 
dial response. The General Court of Connecticut advised 
Leisler to keep the fort well manned ; to suffer no Roman 
Catholic to enter it armed or without arms ; and it sent 
two agents to Albany.^ On their arrival at this place, 
they wrote to Leisler in the warmest terms of praise, ex- 
tolling his " loyalty, courage, prudence, and charge," and 
recognizing his good service to God, King William, and the 



1 New- York Col. Doc, iii. 594. 

2 Leisler's first letter to the Committee of Safety at Boston is dated June 4, 1689. 
See his letter to Connecticut, .June 16, 1689. — Doc. Hist, of New York, ii. 3 and 5. 

8 Conn. Col. Records, iii 468. 



INTER-COLONIAL CORRESPONDENCE AND A CONGRESS. 85 

country in the preservation of the Protestant religion.^ The 
letters of Governor Bradstrcet are cantioiis, hut friendly. 
The Assemhly of Maryland solicited a " friendly and neigh- 
horly" correspondence with the northern colonies at all 
times, as occasion should require, concerning all matters 
cond icive in any way to their majesties' service and the 
welfare of their subjects.^ " We return you," Leisler wrote 
to the Maryland Assembly, " many thanks for your friendly 
and neighborly advice, and embrace with all our hearts your 
offers of a mutual and amicable correspondence with you, 
wliich we shall labor to keep and preserve with you as we 
do with Boston and Connecticut Colony." He also thanked 
the Colony of Massachusetts for their care and sympathy. 
Though it was said, that the adherents of James in several 
colonies were a cabal^ against the Prince of Orange, yet 
they proved to be few in numbers and without power ; the 
body of the people in all the colonies being warmly in favor 
of the Revolution. Hence unusual political action was not 
necessary to promote this cause, and no measure embodying 
the idea of union grew out of the suggestion of Leisler. 
The earliest inter-colonial correspondence of a political 
nature, however, serves to show, that, underlying the law 
of diversity which marked the development of American so- 
ciety into distinct communities, there was the powerful 
element of political affinity. 

At that interesting period, France was pursuing with 
vigor the sclieme for securing dominion in America. The 
designs of this power had been regarded with jealousy, from 
the first settlement of the colonies. Henceforth, for seventy 
years, the endeavors to carry out these designs became the 
fertile source of alarm and peril to the colonists, and the 
great spur to political and military effort. 

1 Letter of Nathan Gold and James Fitch, June 26, 1689. 

2 Mass. Archives, xxxv. 60. 

8 Goodie, of Maryland, wrote to Lei.'iler, Nov. 26, 16S9, " I believe our great men 
of this province, some of yours, and New England, were a cabnl, and held a great 
correspondence against the Protestant interest." — New- York Doc. Hist., ii. 43 



\ 



86 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

The earliest result tending towards union which the 
French scheme produced took place when Charles II. was 
a pensioner of Louis XIV. The dominion to which France 
aspired necessarily involved encroachment on the hunting- 
grounds of the Indians. This had been resisted with great 
intrepidity and success by the powerful confederacy of the 
Five Nations. Some of the tribes comprising this league 
had assaulted the English settlements. The Avar-paths of 
their braves extended as far south as the Carolinas, in the 
west to the Mississippi, and in the east into Maine. As the 
signs indicated to them a severer struggle than ever with the 
French, the Five Nations desired peace with the English, 
and made this known through Governor Dongan of New 
York. He invited a conference of English officials at Al- 
bany to meet the chiefs of these tribes. It was held in July, 
1684. Four colonies — Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, 
and New York ^ — were represented. Lord Howard, gov- 
ernor of Virginia, in the name of the English, said that he 
was willing to make a chain, so that they might all be 
brethren and great King Charles's children, which should 
bei strong and lasting to the world's end. Cadiane, a Mo- 
hawk chief, said : " We now plant a tree whose top will 
reach the sun, and its branches spread far abroad, so that 
it shall be seen afar off, and we shall shelter ourselves 
under it, and live in peace without molestation." ^ In this 



1 There were present " The Right Hon. Francis Lord Howard, Baron of Effing- 
ham, Governor General of Virginia," also acting for Maryhmd; Colonel Tlionias 
Dongan, governor of New York, a'ld the magistrates of Albany; Stephanas Van 
Cortlandt, as the agent of Massachusetts ; and several Sachems. 

2 Colden's Five Nations, ii. 49. A few days after the conference, the IMaqiiese 
Sachems, in a speech addressed to the -Massachusetts Agent, thanked their '' brethren 
of Boston " for the proposals made to them three years before; expressed gratifica- 
tion that the covenant had been kept so fast on both sides, and said tiiat the chain 
must be kept clean and br'ght. " We sdl, namely, our governor, the governor 
of Virginia and the Massachusetts Colony, and Muquese, are in one covenant. 
We do plant here a great tree of peace, whose branches spread as far as the 
Massachusetts Colony, Virginia, Marj-land, and all that are in friendship with us, 
and do live in peace, unitj-, and tranquillity, under the shade of said tree." — Mass. 
Archives, xxx. 303. 



INTER-COLONIAL CORRESPONDENCE AND A CONGRESS. 87 

conference, the North and the South met for the first time, 
and deliberated for the attainment of a common object. A 
treaty was formed, which embraced territory extending from 
the St. Croix to Albemarle.^ Governor Dongan gave the 
warriors the arms of the Duke of Yorlc to affix to their 
castles. The act was interpreted by the Indians to be a 
pledge, on the part of the English King, to give them aid in 
their wars against the French ; but it was intended by the 
English to be a recognition of the sovereignty of Great 
Britain. 

Tiie designs of the French, evinced in building boats, 
collecting materials for war, and disputing the right of the 
English to trade at certain places, grew more alarming from 
year to year, while the British Government continued to be 
indifferent to the issue. " If tlie French," the governor of 
New York earnestly wrote, " have all that they pretend to 
have discovered in these parts, the King of England will 
not have a hundred miles from the sea anywhere." ^ After 
the accession of William and Mary, hostilities were declared 
between France and England, which extended to America ; 
and thus began the first inter-colonial war. The French 
soon planned an invasion of Boston and New York. The 
colonies were left to their own exertions for their defence. 

When the combination of the French and Indians was 
alarming. Governor Bradstreet naturally reverted to the 
" old union and confederation," and, in letters to several 
of the governors, suggested its revival. The proposal was 
favorably received by Governor Treat, of Connecticut, in a 
reply imbued with a fraternal and patriotic spirit.^ But, 



1 Bancroft, ii. 255. 

2 New-York Col. Hist. Doc, iii. 476. The paper in which this sentence occurs is 
dated Sept. 8, 1687. 

3 (loveruor Treat, in a letter dated July 31, 1689, acknowledged a letter from Brad- 
street of the 17th, in which Treat saj's, "I hope we shall be willing, in the season of 
it, to revive the ancient confederation upon just terms and articles, holding forth a 
right consideration of our State compared with the other colonies." He says the 
General Court had made no choice of any commissioners. 



[^ 



6» THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

though there were conferences between the New-England 
colonies, the confederacy was not revived. In New York, 
the factions kept up a bitter and fierce strife. The oppo- 
nents of Leisler maintained an organization against his 
authority. He had severe provocation and a difficult rule. 
Making, however, every allowance, liis arbitrary and passion- 
ate course, not merely with his opponents but with others, 
evinced great lack of administrative ability. In marked 
contrast was the bearing of Bradstreet, who was obliged to 
hear the statements of both sides as to affairs in Now York. 
In writing of them, he urged " all true Englishmen to lay 
aside their private animosities and intestine discords, and to 
unite against the common enemy." ^ 

When there was this feud, the country was startled by 
the intelligence of an invasion of New York by the French 
and Indians. On the 8th of February, 1690, a war-party, 
who had come stealthily from Canada, entered the open 
gates of the town of Schenectady, when it was snowing, 
and broke the stillness of midnight with the terrible yell 
and whoop of the savages. Men, women, and children, for 
two liours, were mercilessly butchered. Their dwellings 
were burned. The whole town was sacked. The spectacle 
presented all the horrid features of the Indian mode of war- 
fare. A few inhabitants, escaping from the tomahawk or 
scalping-knife, waded in the deep snow to Albany, and, 
running through the place about five in the morning, roused 
the inliabitants from their beds by crying tlie dreadful news. 
The intelligence flew through the colonies. It awakened 
the keenest sympathy. A popular demand then rose for 
action against the Frencli. Among the incidents of this 
time of panic and passion was a visit of condolence by 
cliicfs of the Five Nations at Albany. " Brethren," they 



1 Letter, dated Boston, Feb. 3, 1689-90, to Captain Bull, " Here are some gen- 
tlemen come with letters from New York, by the return of whom the Council write 
to Captain Leisler, and labor to lay before him the mischief," &c. — Mass. Arcl.ives, 
XXXV. 212. 



INTER-COLONIAL CORRESPONDENCE AND A CONGRESS. 89 

said, " we come with tears in our eyes to bemoan the blood 
shed at Schenectady by the perfidious French. Brethren, 
be patient. This disaster is an affliction which has fallen 
from heaven upon us. The sun, which hatli been cloudy, 
will shine again with his pleasant beams. Take courage, 
courage," repeating the words. " Send to New England. 
Tell them what has happened. They will lend us a helping 
hand." 

Sclienectady was the Fort Sumter of that day. The 
event had a political effect. It shamed the factions in New 
York at least into a truce. It roused a spirit of patriotism. 
The governor of Massachusetts urged, in letters to the other 
colonies, the necessity for immediate action to provide for 
the common defence. He advised Leisler of his readiness 
to engage in whatever might promote his majesty's service, 
praying that God might give success to the great under- 
takings then on foot in Europe for the defence and advance 
of the Protestant interest, and so smile on the endeavors 
for the recovery of the lost peace of the colonies.^ " 'Tis 
pity," he wrote to the governor of Plymouth, " but that in 
this time of action New England should be found doing 
something towards their own safety and defence." ^ The 
expedition under Sir William Phips, undertaken by Massa- 
chusetts alone, attests that he reflected the spirit of the 
people. 

The General Court, in view of organizing a joint eflbrt 
of the colonies, proposed to hold a congress. The call for 
a meeting is dated the 19th of March, 1690. It relates, 
that their majesties' subjects had been invaded by the 
French and Indians ; that many of the colonists had been 
barbarously murdered, and were in danger of greater mis- 

1 Letter, dated March 15, 1690. Mass. Archives, xxxvi. 202. 

2 4th Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll , v. 231. Letter to Thomas Hincklej', March 11, 
1690. The governor says, "Twas midnight . . . when those poor, divided, secure 
wretches were surprised; . . . sixty of them were butchered, of whom Lieutenant 
Talmage and four men were of Captain Bull's company, besides five of said com- 
pany carried captive." 



90 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

chiefs ; and it proposed, as a measure of prevention, that 
the neighboring colonies, and Virginia, Maryland, and the 
parts adjacent, should be invited to meet at New York, and 
conclude on suitable methods for assisting each other for 
the safety of the whole land. The governor of New York 
was desired to transmit this invitation to the southern 
colonies.-^ 

Such was the first call for a general congress in America. 
It is free from narrowness. It is liberal in its spirit, sim- 
ple in its terms, and comprehensive in its object. It invited 
all the English colonies to send delegates to meet in assem- 
bly, and deliberate for the common good. In view of the 
greatness of the power that threatened them, it was urged 
that their united strength would be found little enough 
against the common enemy .^ 

The call elicited from several colonies interesting replies. 



1 The original order of the General Court is in the following terms: " Tlieir 
majesty's subjects in these northern plantations of America, having of late been 
invaded by the French and Indians, and many of them barbarously murdered and 
are in great danger of further mi-ichiefV> : For the prevention whereof, it is by this 
court thought necessary that letters be written to the several governors of the neigh- 
boring: colonies, desiring them to appoint commissioners to meet at New York on the 
last Monday of April next, then to advise and conclude on suitable metiiods in 
assisting each other for the safety of the whole land. And that the governor of New 
York be desired to signify' the same to Virginia, Mar\'land, and parts adjacent." 
Voted in the affirmative by the magistrates. Isa. Addington, Secy. The Deputies 
consent thereunto. Daniel Epps, per order. 19th March, 1689-90. — Mass. Archives, 
XXXV. 321. In the reply to this invitation by Governor Bull, dated April 18, he names 
"York" as the place of the meeting, which shows that the invitation was sent to 
him agreeably to the order. Yet, on the Massachusetts Records, the place is written 
plainly " Rhode Island " Trumbull (Hist Conn., i. 391) says the invitation was to 
meet at Rhode Island. Holmes (Annals) and Ilollister (Hist. Conn., i. 330) say the 
meeting was held in Rhode Island. 

Lei-^ler's Circular Letter addressed to the governors is dated April 2, 1690. — New- 
York Doc. Hist., ii. 211. It is mainly devoted to the situation of the French army. 
It states as the object of the proposed meeting to conclude Avhat miglit conduce most 
for the king's interest, the welfare of the provinces, &c. It was .sent, dated April 3, 
to Massachusetts and Plymouth, and appears on the face to be an original propo.si- 
tion. Bradstreet had looked to the "ancient union and confederation" (Letter, 
Jul}' 17, 1689), and this call was an extension of this idea. In a letter to Hinckley, 
dated April 11, 1690, Bradstreet says of the proposed congress, " the governor of 
New York doth accept that propo.sal." — 4th Mass. Hist. Coll., v. 239. 

2 Bradstreet, in his letter to Hinckley, April 11, 1690. 



INTER-COLONIAL CORRESPONDENCE AND A CONGRESS. 91 

Governor Hinckley, of Plymouth, entered with zeal into 
the measure, and, though the General Court was not in 
session, appointed a commissioner. The Quaker-governor 
of Rhode Island, Henry Bull, replied h\ an excellent spirit. 
He said, that the people of that colony, expecting every 
day a visit of tlie enemy by sea, kept continual watch and 
ward, night and day, and were building shelters for such 
great artillery as they had ; and, though the time was too 
short to convene the assembly for the appointment of com- 
missioners, he promised the aid of that colony to the utmost 
of its ability to resist the French and Indians.^ The 
head of the convention of Maryland wrote, that it was the 
design of the assembly to send arms and men to aid in the 
general defence ; though the great distance between Mary- 
land and New York, the unsettled state of their constitu- 
tions, and the uncertainty respecting his majesty's pleasure 
respecting the province, so discouraged their councils, that 
they could come to no delinite conclusion on this point ; 
they had, however, sent two agents to the conference to act 
in their name, and report to the convention the proceedings 
of tlie meeting.^ President Bacon, of Virginia, replied, that 
the proposition would require the action of the assembly, 
and that nothing would be done until the arrival of the daily 
expected governor.^ The replies to the invitation were cor- 
dial. 

The commissioners of four colonies met at New York. 
The delegates from Massachusetts carried a commission 
empowering them to fix upon such methods as should be 
judged most suitable to provide for the general defence and 
security, and for subduing the common enemy.* The de- 



1 Letter, dated Newport, April 18, 1690. — Mass. Archives, xxxvi. 16. 

2 New- York Doc. Hist., ii. 249. 3 ibid. 

* The delegates from Massachusetts were William Stoughton and Samuel Sewall. 
Their coiuniission, signed by Simon Bradstreet, is dated April 15, 1690. — Mass. 
Archives, xxxvi. 5. Connecticut was represented by N;ithaniel Gold and William 
Pitkin; Plymouth, by John Walley ; and New York, by Leisler and P. D. Lanoy, the 
maj^or of the city. 



92 THE EISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

liberations led to a unanimous result. On the 1st of May, 
an agreement was signed by the delegates, in behalf of the 
five colonies, to raise a force of eight hundred and fifty-five 
men for the strengthening of Albany, and, " by tlie help of 
Almighty God, subduing the French and Indian enemies." 
It was agreed, that the lieutenant-governor of New York 
should name the commander of this force ; that it should 
not be employed on any other service without the consent 
of the five colonies ; and that the officers should be required 
to preserve among their men good order, punish vice, keep 
the sabbatli, and maintain the worship of God.^ No propo- 
sition appears to have been entertained for a permanent 
organization. Indeed, the government of Massachusetts 
said that they called the congress " to meet a conjuncture, 
until more express commands should be received from the 
king." 



1 The following is copied from the Massachusetts Archives, xxx^i. 47: — 
New York, Primo May, 1690. 

At a meeting of the Commissioners of tlie Provinco of New York and tlie Colonics of the 
Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut. 

It is concluded as their unanimous result, that, in the present expedition for the strength- 
ening of Albany, the pursuing, and, by help of Almighty God, subduing the French and 
Indian enemies continuing in hostility against their majesties, that e;ich of the colonies afore- 
Baid shall provide and furnish the under-mentioned proportions of soldiers, with answerable 
provisions, at their own chai'ge, to be sent with all speed, viz. ; — 

By New York, four hundred 400 

By the Massachusetts Colony, one hundred and sixty 160 

By Plymouth Colony, sixty 60 

By Connecticut Colony, one hundred thirty-firo 135 

By Maryland, by promise 100 

In all, eight hundred fifty-five 865 

Further agreed that the major be appointed by the lieutenant-governor of New Y'ork, and 
the next captain to be appointed by the colonies of the Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Con- 
necticut. 

That all plunder and captures (if any happen) shall be divided to the officers and soldiers 
according to the custom of war. 

That all matters of gre:it concernment be directed and ordered by the council of war, con- 
sisting of the major with the rest of the commissioned officers, or so many of them as there is 
opportunity for 

That the soldiers sent out, or to be sent out, be not employed in any other service or expe- 
dition than what is now agreed on, without further consent of the several colonies. 

That the ofRcers be required to maintain good order amongst the soldiers, to discountenance 
and punish vice, and as much as may bo to keep the sabbath, and maintain the worship of 
God. 

Jacob Leisler, WilUam Stoughton, Samuel Sewall, P. D. Lanoy, .John Walley, Nathaniel 
Gold, William Pitkin. 



INTER-COLONIAL CORRESPONDENCE AND A CONGRESS. 93 

Efforts were made to obtain additional aid from New Jer- 
sey, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. Leisler, in a letter 
addressed to tlie governments of these colonies, said : " I 
hope you will not be wanting so blessed a work at this time 
to please God and our gracious king. Losing the opportu- 
nity and neglecting the season may cause the next genera 
tion to curse us." ^ 

I need only state, as the result of this congress, that it 
was I'csolved to attempt the reduction of Canada by two 
lines of attack, — one to conquer Acadia, and then to move 
on Quebec ; and the other, by the route of Lake Champlain, 
to assault Montreal. The New-England forces under Sir 
William Phips, assigned to the first route, captured Acadia 
and Port Royal, and sailed for Quebec, in the expectation 
of being aided by the other forces who marched by the 
Champlain route. But they, under Fitz-John Winthrop, with 
the title of major, were not successful. Leisler, with char- 
acteristic rashness, accused the commander of treachery ; 
while tlie officers charged the commissary, Jacob Milborne, 
of New York, with inefficiency in procuring supplies. The 
failure of Winthrop occasioned the retreat of Phips. The de- 
feat of this enterprise left the French at liberty to pursue 
their schemes. 

In the interesting events bearing on local government 
and union which have been related, — the revolution, inter- 
colonial correspondence, and a congress, — two characters' 
filled a large space in the public eye, Jacob Leisler and 
Simon Bradstreet. 

Leisler lacked judgment and wisdom in administrative 
atfairs, but his aims were comprehensive and patriotic. His 
words are imbued with a reverent spirit, and were evidently 
tlie utterances of an honest man. It was his lot to encounter 
an opposition led by persons who held office under King 
James. They pursued him with a relentless spirit, and at 
length managed to frame an indictment against him for 

1 Leisler to all the Western governments, May 13, 1690. 



94 THE EISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

high treason. A court, of which Joseph Dudley, a degen- 
erate son of Massachusetts, was the cliief justice, passed 
sentence of death on him ; and also on his son-in-law, Jacob 
Milborne, who had been associated with Leisler in the gov- 
ernment.i The new governor, Sloughter, signed the death- 
warrant. The victims and their families petitioned that 
execution might be deferred until his majesty's pleasure 
could be known ; and this touching appeal was supported 
by a memorial signed by a large portion of the people." 
But the same relentless party spirit that desecrated the 
temple of justice, steeled the licentious^ royal governor 
against a plea for mercy. Leisler and Milborne were led 
to the gallows at New York, on the 16th of May, 1691, 
in the midst of a heavy rain. A great number of the in- 
habitants were present ; and a company of British soldiers, 
newly arrived, under Ingolsby, were drawn up to overawe 
them. The patriots, innocent as they certainly were of the 
crime alleged against them, were calm and manly, Mil- 
borne prayed for the king and queen and for the governor 
and council ; but to a party-leader who stood near, Robert 
Livingston, he said, " You have caused the king that I 
must now die ; but before God's tribunal I will implead you 
for the same." He said to Leisler, " We are thoroughly 



1 Contemporary records attest the deep feeling which this proceeding occasioned 
in Massachusetts. The following; incident occurred before the execution could have 
been known at Boston: Lawrence Hammond writes (Journal in the Archives of the 
Mass. Hist. Society), under the date of May 19, 1691, " Captain Sprague told me, 
that, in his hearing at George Marsh's in Boston, and in the hearing of many more, 
Mr. Andrew Belcher, of Charlestown, on the 18th inst., did say, that the jury that 
found Leisler and his accomplices guilty, and Dudley, the judge who condemned 
them to death, deserved to be hanged themselves, and it was a pity Dudley had 
not been hanged wiien he was in England." Increase Mather, in a letter addressed 
to Dudley, dated Jan. 20, 1708 (1st Mass. Hist. Coll., iii. 127) wrote, "I am afraid 
that the guilt of innocent blood is still crying in the ears of the Lord against you; 
I mean the blood of Leisler and Milborne. My Lord Bellamont said to me, that 
he was one of the committee of the parliament who examined the matter, and that 
those men were not only murdered, but barbarously murdered." 

2 The petition was signed by " more than eighteen hundred persons." — New- 
York Doc. Col. Hist, iii. 812. 

8 Sloughter was " licentious in his morals" and avaricious. 



INTER-COLONIAL CORRESPONDENCE AND A CONGRESS. 95 

wet witli rain ; but in a little while we shall be rained 
through with the Holy Spirit." Leisler had a wife aud chil- 
dreu, aud had beeu irreproacliable in private life. His mind 
was divided bctweeu his country and his agonized family. 
He recurred repeatedly to their condition, and implored all 
not to allow them to suffer on his account, but to deal in 
Christian charity with the fatherless and the widow. To 
Milborne he said, " "Why must you die ? You have been but a 
servant to us." He confessed that he had committed errors, 
some through ignorance, some through fear that disaffected 
persons would not be true to the interest of tlie crown of 
England, some through misinformation, some through pas- 
sion, haste, and anger ; and for these errors lie asked pardon 
of God and of all whom he had offended. " I am a dying 
man," he said, " and do declare before Grod and the world, 
that what I have done was for King William and Queen 
Mary, for the defence of the Protestant religion and the 
good of the country. I am ready — I am ready." ^ They 
were hung, and their heads were severed from the bodies. 
The fainting and the piercing screams of the women and 
tlie shrieks of the people were the wail of humanity at 
the commission of so foul a deed. " Some," a writer says, 
" rushing forwards ere the life of their beloved ruler was ex- 
tinct, cut off pieces of his garments as precious relics, and 
his hair was divided out of great veneration as for a mar- 
tyr." 2 It is the office of history to bear witness to Jacob 
Leisler's integrity as a man, his loyalty as a subject, and his 
purity as a patriot.^ 

Far different was the close of the life of Simon Brad- 
street, who was called the Nestor of New England. He 
was born in England, was educated at Emanuel College, 
and, emigrating to Salem, in Massachusetts, was chosen, 

1 The dying speeches of Leisler and Jlilborne are in the " Documentary History 
of New York,"' by Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan, ii. 370. 

2 Hoffman's Life of Leisler, Sparks's Biography, xiii. 230. 

8 An Address by Frederick de Peyster, before the New-York Historical Society, 
1864, 23. 



96 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

in 1630, one of tlie assistants. He continued fifty years in 
the magistracy. He was six years tlie deputy-governor and 
five years the governor, and was repeatedly cliosen one of tlie 
coinmis.sioners of the United Colonies. His action during 
the revolution was firm and patriotic. It is to his honor 
that he gave encouragement and recognition to Leisler, and 
opposed the proceedings relating to witchcraft. He lived 
to a patriarchal age, and died in peace. His long career 
was characterized by piety, a spirit of self-sacrifice, and, in 
a season of danger, of moral heroism ; and if he was not a 
great man, he yet rendered good service to the cause of 
liberty and his country.^ 

Bradstreet and Leisler were imbued with a spirit of loy- 
alty. This is seen in the brief and stormy career and in the 
sublime dying speech of Leisler and in the long service of 
Bradstreet. In respect to the essential element of sover- 
eignty, they may be considered as representative men. They 
were enthusiasts in behalf of William and Mary. The 
popular feeling in the colonics was not merely a cold acqui- 
escence in their accession, but a liigh enthusiasm for it. It 
created joyful hearts.^ It was hailed as a promise of a 
revival and guarantee of English liberties; and, with them, 
of a restoration to the colonists of their ancient customs 
and riglits. When this hope animated the people, it was 
said in print, that it was not merely individual sentiment, 
but public opinion in the colonies, that the English nation 
was never so happy in a king and queen. The prayer was 
added, "The God of Heaven, who has set them on the 



1 Bradstreet died at Salem, Mnrch 27, 1697, aged ninety-five. 

2 Increase Miither was agent of Massachusetts in 1689. On the 14th of March, 
he was introduced to King William, who remarked, that he would direct the king 
and queen to be proclaimed b}' the former magistrates. JNIather replied, " Sir. they 
will do it w.th the joyfullest hearts in the world." Mather also said to the King of 
New England, " Your majesty may, by the assistance of New England, become the 
Emperor of America. I durst engage, that your subjects there will readily venture 
their lives in your service. All that is humbly desired on their behalf is only that 
they may enjoy their ancient rights and privileges." — Cotton Mather's Remarka- 
bles. 



INTER-COLONIAL CORRESPONDENCE AND A CONGRESS. 97 

throne of these kingdoms, grant them long and prosper- 
ously to reign ! " ^ 

A set of officials, however, continued to represent, that 
the colonies, and especially New England, desired and 
aimed to cast oti their dependence on the mother country ; 
and the question was debated in the Council for Foreign 
Plantations what form it was expedient to use in addressing 
colonies that were ripe for rebellion.^ It was said, that 
the popular leaders must have had orders from William un- 
known to others, or that they meant to cast off their depen- 
dence or obedience to the crown of England. The basis of 
truth in this allegation was their attachment to tlieir local 
self-government, and the spirit in which the colonies, each in 
its own mode, opposed the designs of arbitrary power. The 
servile doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance 
never liad a foot-hold in British North America.^ The events 
known as the Culp6pper insurrection in Carolina, and Ba- 
con's rebellion in Yirginia, were manifestations of the same 
spirit which effected the revolution that extended from the 
Potomac to the St. Croix. Whatever might have been the 
ultimate tendency, the whole action was but a claim for old 
customs and liberties. And the closest inspection of the 
inter-colonial correspondence, and of the object of those 
who called the first American congress, will fail to discover 

1 Preface to " The Revolution in New England Justified," printed in 1691, in 
which the allegation that " the New Englanders were common-wealth's-men, ene- 
mies to monarchy and to the Church of England," was pronounced to be a sham. 

2 Evelyn's Diary, ii. 60, 61. June 6, 1671, " I went to council, where was pro- 
duced a most ample and exact information ... of the best expedients as to New 
England, on which there was a long debate." — " We understood they were on the 
very brink of renouncing anj' dependence on the crown." Aug. 3. The mutter in 
debate was whether we should send a deputy to New England, with an open com- 
mission, "but in truth with secret instructions to inform us . . . whether they were 
of such power as to be able to resist his majesty, and declare for themselves as inde- 
pendent of the crown." 

8 The first paragraph of '' Tlie Revolution of New England Justified" (1691) is as 
follows: "Tiie doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance, which a sort of men 
did of late, when they thought the world would never change, cry up as divine 
truth, is, hy means of the happy revolution \n these nations, exploded ; and the 
asserters of it become ridiculous." 

7 



98 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

hostility to the monarchical principle, or any desire to set 
up an independent nation.^ 

Indeed, the twelve colonies were not in a condition to es- 
tablish a separate nationality. They had no bond of union. 
Tliey had no naval force. Their means of inter-communi- 
cation was very imperfect. George Fox, in 1671, travelled 
from Rhode Island to Carolina through woods and the wil- 
derness, over bogs and across moors, sometimes being a day 
without a sight of man or woman or dwelling-place, sleep- 
ing in the woods and in Indian wigwams, and not without 
danger to his life. Six years later, another relation of a 
journey shows that there was then no regular road through 
the colonies. Nor was there, in 1690, a general post-office. 
In a word, there were only the germs of a nation, — ideas 
and their tendencies as applied by prosperous communities. 

The colonies contained varied fields of enterprise. The 
rugged clime of New England fostered free labor and com- 

1 Chalmers (Annals, 593) remarked of this congress, "Massachusetts, New Ply- 
mouth, and Connecticut formed a Ic gue with Leisler. ... Of New England, it is a 
remarkable ch;iracteristic, that she has at all times found delight amid scenes of 
turbulence." In the prefnce to his '' Opinions of Eminent Lawyers," printed first 
in 1814, he stated, that, among the documents in the Board of Trade and Paper 
Office, there were " the most satisfactory proofs " of the settled purpose of the colo- 
nies, fi-om "the epoch of the Revolution of 1688," "to acquire direct independence " 
He presented, however, none of these proofs. It is stated by Viscount Bury, in his 
" Exodus of the Western Nations " (i. 305), that, soon after the accession of William 
and Mary, the colonies " formed the resolution of becoming independent of the mother 
country." He does not, however, state any evidence to sustain this assertion. 

The denial of this charge was as continuous as was its repetition. Among the 
actors of the period I h.ive reviewed in this chapter was Thomas Danforth He was 
an able, upright, Mnd wise m;in, and had great influence in the direction of public 
affairs in 16U5, sind in 1690 particularly. He died in 1699, at the age of 77. In an 
elaborate letter, dated July 6, 1689, and addressed to Increase Math«r (Hutchinson's 
Coll., 567), he refers repeatedly to the loyalty of the people to the crown. He 
wrote, " Nature hath taught us self-preservation: God commands it as being the 
rule of ch:irity towards our neighbor. Our great remoteness from England denies 
us the opportunity of direction and order from thence for the regulating ourselves in 
all emergencies, nor have we means to know the laws and customs of our nation. 
These things are our great disadvantage We have always endeavored to a]iprove 
ourselves loyal to the crown of England, and are well assured that none of our worst 
enemies dare to tax us in that matter; and we have also labored to attend the diiec- 
tions of our charter, under the security whereof were laid by our fathers the founda- 
tions of tliis his majesty's colony." 



INTER-COLONIAL CORRESPONDENCE AND A CONGRESS. 99 

mcrcial activity. The thick forests of New York abounded 
in game, and supplied furs and skins ; the soil of Maryland 
and Virginia yielded great crops of tobacco ; and the Caro- 
linas were famed for rice and maize. The people of each 
colony desired to exchange their surplus products for the 
articles they needed, and they could see no sin in doing this 
in ships built and manned by themselves. This was the 
beginning of a mutually profitable commerce between the 
rising colonies. 

The spectacle of prosperity attracted the attention of the 
British writers on political economy. They divided the 
American colonies into two distinct classes, — one the pro- 
ductions of which, as sugar or tobacco, did not come in 
competition with the products of the mother country ; and 
the other, specifying New England, which imitated Old Eng- 
land in tillage, fishing, manufactures, and trade, and which, 
supplying the other colonies with provisions, took in ex- 
change their sugar or rice or tobacco, and carried them 
to foreign ports. Legislators were advised to discriminate 
wisely between the depending and profitable, and the de- 
tached and undermining, colonies, and to rightly apply 
" tcntatives and corrosives." If any were to be neglected 
and discouraged, it was suggested they should only be 
those which pursued a method that rivalled the native king- 
dom, and " threatened in time a total independence there- 
from." 1 

This speculation, that the colonies might be in a condition 
to become independent, is seen also in verse. The thought 
was expressed by Sir Thomas Browne, in a prophecy con- 
cerning the future state of America, which occurs in a series 
of rather vague foreshadowings. It was of a time, — 

" When America shall cease to send out its treasure, 
But emplo}' it at liome in American pleasure; 
When the new world shall the old invade, 
Nor count them their lords, but their fellows in trade." 

1 Harlean Miscellany, ii, 360. Tract printed in 1690. 

Lore. 



100 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

" That is," the author wrote, " when America shall be 
better civilized, new policied, and divided between great 
princes, it will come to pass that they will no longer suffer 
their treasure of gold and silver to be sent out for the 
luxury of Europe and other parts ; but rather employ it to 
their own advantages, in great exploits and undertakings, 
magnificent structures, wars, or expeditions of their own. 
. . . When America shall be so well peopled, civilized, and 
divided into kingdoms, they are like to have so little re- 
gard of their originals as to acknowledge no subjection unto 
them ; they may also have a distinct commerce between 
themselves, or but independently with those of Europe, and 
may hostilely and piratically assault them, even as the Greek 
and Roman colonies after a long time dealt with their origi- 
nal countries." ^ 

1 Sir Thomas Browne's Works, iii. 261, 266. This prophecy was first printed in 
1684. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Ideas of Local Self-government and op Union for Sev- 
enty Years, and their Combination m the Plan adopted bt 
THE Albany Convention. 

1690 TO 1760. 

The New-England Confederacy, inter-colonial correspond- 
ence, and a congress, are memorials of the working of union 
elements, during seventy years of the colonization of North 
America. As population and wealth increased, and the 
scheme of France to obtain dominion unfolded, the greater 
became the want of a way to regulate the growing com- 
mercial intercourse, and to provide for the general security. 
The method naturally suggested to attain these ends was 
to unite the colonies into a common polity. Accordingly, 
one class urged the formation of a union based on principles 
in harmony with the genius of American institutions ; but 
union was also pressed by royal officials and others as an 
instrumentality to check popular power, to consolidate func- 
tions in the prerogative, to secure the advantages of a mer- 
cantile monopoly, and to inaugurate a system of taxation ; 
and, when a convention at Albany, called by the crown, 
recommended a plan of union to be authorized by an act of 
Parliament, it was unanimously rejected by the colonial 
assemblies. Thus the law of diversity continued to be para- 
mount for another period of seventy years, with the result, 
at its close, of thirteen colonies, independent of each other 
in respect to their local affairs, but united by the tie of 
loyalty to the crown in the bonds of a common country. 

When the plan of union referred to was rejected, a new 
claimant had appeared for a portion of the soil of North 



102 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

America. The European discoverers followed the course of 
the sun from the east to the land of the west over the Atlan- 
tic ; but the Russians, passing over their territories from 
the west to the east, made discoveries and settlements on 
the northwest coast, which entitled them to possessions com- 
prising an area of about half a million of square miles.^ 
England, France, and Spain, beside being claimants of the 
soil, were rivals for a monopoly of its commerce. At that 
period, maps were printed in England delineating the'vast- 
ness of the region which the French were attempting to 
hold. It was represented to be a broad belt of territory, 
beginning at the Gulf of St. Lawrence and extending along 
the basins of the great lakes, the Ohio and the Mississippi 
Rivers, to the Gulf of Mexico, on which were shown the 
forts and missionary posts which had been established.^ 

1 Kohl (Discovery of America, ii. 146) says the Russians opened the overland 
route to America. The chase of the sable carried the Cossacks from the Ural to the 
Amoor, and the chase of the sea-otter carried them to the new continent. — Ibid., ii. 
178. Kanitchatka had been known by report in Yakutsk since 1690. Behring's first 
expedition was in 1725, and was finished in three years; his sec(md and great expe- 
dition, which lasted sixteen years, sailed July 4, 1741. From 174-3, expeditions 
penetrated further east from promontory to promontoiy. In 1760 (ibid., ii. 179), the 
traders touched at Alaska. 

2 The maps of North America are too numerous to specify. It is stated, that 
the French and English commissioners, at and after the Treaty of Aix-ia-Chapelle, 
in 1748, collected, consulted, and criticised as many as fifty American maps. — 
Kohl's Lectures on the Charts and Maps of America. The Ebeling Collection, in 
the Library of Harvard College, is rich in American maps. Douglass, the author of 
"A Summarj", Historical and Political," of the British settlements in North America, 
in a letter to Cadwallader Colden, dated Sept. 14, 1729, says there was not a map of 
the provinces of New Englimd but was "intolerably and grossly erroneous." The 
best map of America at this time was De Lisle's of 1722. In this map, Louisiana is 
delineated as a great region. The maps of Henry Popple of 1733 are very elaborate. 
The most accurate map, however, was that of the celebrated D'Anville. This was 
adopted by Douglass in his historj', — the edition of 1755. The map is entitled 
" North America, from the French of Mr. D'Anville, improved with the back settle- 
ments of Virginia, and course of the Ohio illustrated, with Geographical and Historical 
remarks." The date on this map is May, 1755. The "Gentleman's Magazine " for 
Jul}', 1755, contains "A Map of the British and French Settlements in North Ameri- 
ca," in which the region claimed by France appears in a darker shade than the rest 
of the map. In 1755, Huske published " A New and Accurate Map of North Amer- 
ica, wherein the errors of all preceding British, French, and Dutch maps, respect- 
ing the rights nf Great Britain, France, and Spain, and the limits of each of his 
majesty's provinces, are corrected." 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 103 

Tne splendid territorj, called Florida by the Spaniards and 
Louisiana by the French, extended on the Atlantic coast to 
Carolina. Treaty stipulations between the European powers 
left boundary questions in such an indefinite state, the 
rivalry for the colonial trade was so great, and national in- 
terests had become so complicated, that Voltaire wrote, " A 
shot fired in America may be the signal of the conflagration 
of Europe." ^ 

The population of the colonies, in seventy years, increased 
from two hundred thousand to a million and a half. It was 
described as " a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, 
Dutcli, Germans, and Swedes." ^ Only small groups of Irish 
and Scotch were seen in the colonies in the seventeenth 
century; bnt, in the reigns of Anne and George I., oppres- 
sion and scarcity of food drove large numl^ers of them to 
America, They were termed Scotch-Irish. They were gen- 
erally Presbyterians ; and wherever they settled, they adopted 
the usages of the Church of Scotland.^ Germans also emi- 
grated in large numbers, and chiefly into Maryland and 
Pennsylvania.'^ The African race rapidly multiplied, by 
fresh importations as well as by natural increase. Their 
numbers were estimated to be in New England eleven 
thousand ; in New York and in Pennsylvania, including 
Delaware, each eleven thousand ; in New Jersey, fifty-five 
hundred ; and in the other colonies two hundred and twenty- 
two thousand.^ The great body of them were slaves. At 
that period, the slave-trade was a part of the British Consti- 
tution,^ and a share of its gains went into tlie national trea- 
sury. All the efforts of the colonists to check the horrid 

1 Essay on Universal History, iv. 186. 

2 " Letters from an American Farmer," and bj' J. Hector St. John, 48. Tliese 
letters are dated from " Carlisle in Pennsylvania." In the first letter, it is stated, 
that, -when it and some of the succeeding letters were written, the troubles that 
convulsed the colonies had not broken out. I quote ti-om a new edition printed in 
1783. They were written by a Frenchman (Crevecceiir), who came over in 1754. 

8 Scotch-Irish Immigrations to America by William Willis. 

4 Gordon's Pennsylvania, 208. 5 Bancroft, iv. 130. 

• Henry Thomas Buckle. 



10-1 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

traffic were futile. English cupidity and the avarice of 
unnatural Americans continued to transport Africans from 
their native country to the colonies, and thus a terrible 
legacy was inflicted on posterity. 
-^' All the colonies exercised powers of government under 
authority derived from the crown. In seven of them, the 
forms remained the same as they were at the close of the 
former period. Virginia and New York continued royal gov- 
ernments ; and Maryland and Pennsylvania retained their 
proprietary character, the three lower counties of the lat- 
ter becoming the independent province of Delaware. Con- 
necticut and Rhode Island were permitted to resume their 
charters. The crown decreed important territorial and 
political changes in the five other colonies. It granted to 
Massachusetts a cliarter which included the Plymouth juris- 
diction, and embraced the " Province of Maine ; " but took 
from the people the election of the governor. It constituted 
the towns of New Hampshire a separate province ; united 
into one colony East and West New Jersey ; divided Caro- 
lina into the two colonies of North Carolina and South Caro- 
lina ; and it founded Georgia, — giving to these five colonies 
royal governments. The rights conveyed by charters and 
royal instructions were necessarily vague and indefinite; 
but under each form the people shared in the control of 
local affairs through representative assemblies. When the 
question of forming a union occupied the public mind, the 
jurisdiction of the thirteen colonies was determined, their 
constitutions were organized, the groundwork of their juris- 
prudence was laid, and the character of their inhabitants 
was established. 

A glance at the statistics of the population of the several 
sections of the country will indicate their political weight. 
New England had increased from 75,000, in 1688, to 436,000 
in 1754 ; New York, from 20,000 to 96,000 ; Pennsylvania, 
Delaware, New Jersey, and Maryland, from 47,000 to 
432,000 ; Virginia, from 50,000 to 284,000 ; and the Caro- 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 105 

linas and Georgia, from 8,000 to 177,000.1 " Some few 
towns excepted," a colonist wrote, " we are all tillers of 
the earth, from Nova Scotia to West Florida. We are a 
people of cultivators, scattered over an immense territory, 
communicating with each other by means of good roads and 
navigable rivers, united by the silken bands of mild gov- 
ernment, all respecting the laws, without dreading their 
power, because they are equitable."^ 

The homogeneity of race and the similarity of develop- 
ment of the New England colonies elicited remarks on them 
of the kind which has been quoted.^ It was said, that, as a 
people, the New Englanders were renowned for their love of 
letters and their wisdom, for their industry and their enter- 
prising genius, and for universal loyalty ; that there never 
was a people, who, with an ungrateful soil, had done more 
in so short a time; and that in their governments lay the 
main strength of the British interest on the continent.* 



1 Bancroft (iv. 130) estimates the population of each colony, whites and blacks, 
in 1754, as follows: — 

White. Black. 

New England . . . Massachusetts 207,000 ) 

New Hampshire 50,000 ) ^'"^ 

Connecticut 133,000 3,500 

Rhode Island 35,000 4,500 

The Middle Colonies . New York 85,000 11,000 

New Jersey 73,000 5,500 

Pennsylvania ) 

„ , } 195,000 11,000 

Delaware ) ' ' 

Maryland 104,000 44,000 

Southern Colonies . A'irginia 168,000 116,000 

North Carolina 90,000 20,000 

South Carolina 40,000 40,000 

Georgia ' 5,000 2,000 

2 Letters from an American Farmer, 147. '" — TT"^—- 
8 See pages 44, 75. 99. **" v'-^ 

* Letter, dated " New York, Sept. 20, 1756," attributed to Governor Livingston 
and two lawj'ers of New York. —1 Mass. Hist. Coll., vii. 139. In the " Boston 
Gazette," Aug. 23, 1754, it is said, "His majesty had not a more universally loyal 
people in all his dominions." — Letters from an American Farmer, 49. This writer 
says, "1 know it is fashionable to reflect on them (the New-England provinces), 
" but I respect them for what they have done, for the accuracy and wisdom with 
which they have settled tlieir territory," &c. See also page 68 The speech of tlie 
Bishop of St. Asaph (Rev. Dr. Jonathan Shipley), intended to have been spoken in 
the House of Lords, and which was circulated in the American newspapers of the fall 



• 106 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

It was remarked that the New Englanders " were the 
unmixed descendants of Englishmen ;" i- and the numbers 
of other lineage were so few as not to affect society. 
This homogeneity is not seen in any other group of colo- 
nies. The Dutch, French, Germans, Irish, and Scotch were 
so numerous in other sections as to constitute a feature of 
the population. This fact suggested a broad and inspiring 
generalization. The colonies were termed " a great Ameri- 
can asylum." 2 In it the poor from the various nations 
of Europe, by some means, met together. To what pur- 
pose, it was said, should they ask one another what coun- 
trymen they were? Alas! two-thirds of them had had no 
country. They had been numbered in no civil list but that 
of the poor. Tliey had not owned a single foot of land. 
They had no harvests from the fields wliich they had tilled. 
Their lives had been scenes of sore affliction or of pinching 
penury. They had been assailed by hunger, want, and war. 
And they were " only as so many useless plants, wanting 
the vegetable mould and the refreshing showers." But in 
this asylum they rank as citizens. They are stamped by the 
laws with the symbol of adoption. They acquire lands as 
the reward of their industry : this gives them the title of 
freemen ; and to this title is affixed every benefit man can 
acquire. These laws proceed from the government ; and 
the government is derived from the original genius and 
strong desire of the people. This is the picture every prov- 
ince exhibits. This is the great chain that links us all. 
Tlie country for the emigrant is that which gives liim land, 
bread, protection, and consequence. "He is an American, 

of 1774, has the following allusion to the service New England rendered in the colo- 
nial wars : " Let us not forget that the people of New England were themselves, 
during the last war, the most forward of all in the national cause; that ever}' year 
we voted them a considerable sum in acknowledgment of their zeal and their ser- 
vices; that in the preceding war they alone enabled us to make the Treaty of Aix- 
la-Chapelle, by furnishing us with the only equivalent for the towns that were taken 
from our allies in Flanders; and that in times of peace they alone have taken from 
us six times as much of our woollen manufactures as the whole kingdom of Ireland." 
1 Letters from an American Farmer, 48. 2 Ibid., 49. 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY TEARS. 107 

who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and man- 
ners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has 
embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank 
he holds. He becomes an American by being received in 
the broad lap of our great Alma Mater. Here individuals 
of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose 
labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the 
world. Americans are the western pilgrims, who are carry- 
ing along with them that great mass of arts, sciences, vigor, 
and industry which began long since in the East. They 
will finish the great circle." ^ 

Tlie colonies, moulded and directed by a race of freemen, 
continued to be treated by the mother country in the auto- 
cratic spirit which has been described. The revolution, pro- 
nounced tlie most beneficent of all revolutions for England,^ 
proved little more than a succession of an unnatural policy 
for America. The colonial administration of William and 
Mary embodied a zealous attachment to the prerogative and 
a stern exercise of arbitrary power .^ Royal officials, -who had 
been imprisoned by the colonists for their oppressions, were 
installed governors and judges. The same spirit controlled 
the colonial action during most of the reigns of Queen Anne 
and George I. and George H. At times, decisions were 
wisely taken, as was the case when Sir Robert Walpole de- 
clined to tax America. But, in the main, Great Britain, 
like an unnatural parent, treated her colonies, during sev- 
enty years, as aliens and rivals. 

The superintendence of colonial affairs continued, for a 
few years after the accession of William, in the hands of the 

1 Letters from an American Farmer, 49, 50, 51, 53. 

2 Macaulay's Hist England, ii. 661. 

8 "In the colonial administration of William Iir., we see the attachment to pre- 
rogative of James L and his son, the bustle of the protector, the contrarietj' of 
Charles IL, and the arbitrariness of the banished king. By denying to the colonists 
the liberty of the press, after it had thrown otF its shackles in England, he even 
deprived them of freedom of mind. By refusing them the writ of habeas corpus, 
he withheld the strongest fence of personal freedom." — Chalmers's Revolt of the 
American Colonies, i. 307. 



108 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Privy Council. In 1G9G, at the instance of Lord Somers, a 
board was created, entitled " The Lords of Trade and Plan- 
tations." At first, it consisted of a president and seven 
members, but was subsequently enlarged, and was continued 
through the colonial age. Several of the English statesmen, 
whose names are familiar to Americans, from their connec- 
tion with colonial politics, were members of this board. To 
it was assigned the duty of a general oversight of American 
affairs, and of recommending measures relative to the colo- 
nies, and it was the channel of official intercourse with them. 
In a circular (Sept. 26, 1696) to the governors, it required 
frequent and full information of the condition of their gov- 
ernments respecting commercial and political affairs ; and 
particularly accounts of the proceedings of the assemblies, of 
the sums assessed for the public service, and how they were 
expended. The royal agents in the colonies and others 
addressed their letters to this board. It was the lion's 
mouth into which the accusations and complaints against 
the colonies were indiscriminately cast. 

While the spirit and proceedings of this Board evinced a 
purpose to interfere in the internal affairs of the colonies, 
the scheme of France to extend her dominion in America 
was a continual menace. There were intervals of peace 
during the period of seventy years ; but even in these times 
the establishment of a new military station was the occasion 
of fresh alarm to the colonists. In the long wars that were 
waged, the French and their Indian allies hurled the arrows 
of death and desolation on the back settlements of Carolina, 
Virginia, and Pennsylvania, and even into the heart of New 
England. The English colonists felt equal to the work of 
defending themselves from the attacks of the French colo- 
nists ; but they asked that English troops might be sent over 
by the Government to meet French troops. The colonies, 
however, for many years were left to their own resources for 
their defence. This external danger made that whole period 
one of anxiety, struggle, and sorrow ; of taxation that 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 109 

pressed heavily on industry ; and of a flow of precious blood 
that transformed the home into the house of mournino;. It 
can now be seen, however, that, in this providential school of 
adversity and of difficulty, statesmen and soldiers, imbued 
with the spirit of a new and rich political life, were trained 
in civil and in military affairs for the work of founding the 
republic. 

This common danger naturally suggested to the thought- 
ful the value of union to provide for the general defence. 
" Without a general constitution for warlike operations," it 
was said, " we can neither plan nor execute. We have a 
common interest, and must have a common council, — one 
head and one purse." ^ Then, as population and wealth in- 
creased, and commercial exchanges multiplied, the want was 
the more sensibly felt of regulations applicable to all, rela- 
tive to the collection of debts, the currency, weights and 
measures, and " to establish an equal liberty of trade in all 
the plantations on the continent of America." ^ It was 
urged, that an umpire was needed to settle the fierce dis- 
putes between the colonies about their boundaries. It was 
said, that no one could tell what was law and what was not law 
in the plantations, and that hence there was doubt and un- 
certainty in matters of the greatest moment;^ and that the 

1 1 Mass. Hist. Coll., vii. 162. 

2 Essay upon the Government of the English Plantations, &c. By an Ameri- 
can. London: 1701, p. 55. The writer was a Virginian. 

8 The following extract from the "Essay upon the Government," &c. (1701), p. 18, 
describes the condition of the law in the colonial age : " It is a great unhappiness, 
that no one can tell what is law and what is not in the plantations. Some hold that 
the law of England is chiefly to be respected, and, where that is deficient, the laws 
of the several colonies are to take place; others are of opinion, that the laws of the 
colonies are to take the first place, and that the law of England is of force only 
where they are silent; others there are who contend for the laws of the colonies, in 
conjunction with those that were in force in England at the first settlement of the 
colony, and lay down that as the measure of our obedience, alleging that we are 
not bound to observe any late acts of parliament in England, except such only 
where the reason of the law is the same here that it is in England. But, this leaving 
too great a latitude to the judge, some others hold that no late act of the parliament 
of England do bind the plantations, but those only wherein the plantations are par- 
ticular!}' named. Thus are we left in the dark in one of the most considerable 
points of our rights; and, the case being so doubtful, we are too often obliged to de- 



110 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

chief thing wanting to render the inhabitants of the planta- 
tions happy was " a free constitution." Those who advocated 
this averred that they desired " a just and equal govern- 
ment, that they might enjoy their obscurity and the poor 
way of living which nature was pleased to afford them 
out of the earth in peace, and be protected in the possession 
thereof by their lawful mother England." ^ The mode that 
naturally suggested itself to obtain such a constitution was 
through the representative principle and by a congress, or 
by forming a union. 

One of the earliest of the plans was that of the nol^le 
founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn, proposed in 1698. 
It is entitled " A brief and plain scheme whereby the Eng- 
lish colonies may be made more useful to the crown and 
one another's peace and safety with an universal concur- 
rence." It provided that each province should appoint 
two persons well qualified for sense, sobriety, and substance 
to form a congress, and to meet once a year, and oftener 
in time of war, and at least once in two years in times of 
peace ; and that this congress should mature measures 
for the better understanding of the colonies with each 
other, and promote the public tranquillity ; namely, the 
settlement of disputes between province and province, the 
prevention of injuries to commerce, and provisions for 
the general safety. It provided that the presiding officer 
of this body should be a high commissioner, appointed by 
the crown, who, in time of war, should command the colo- 
nial forces. The provision relating to supplying quotas of 
men and money, gives as a reason for an adjustment by 
congress rather than by " an establishment " in England, 
that the provinces know their own condition the best, and 



pend upon the crooked cord of a judge's discretion in matters of the greatest moment 
and value." 

1 '' Essay upon the Government," 1701. In this early argument urging a union, 
the word '"constitution" is repeatedly used. One constitution was advocated by 
one class of Americans. 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. Ill 

could bettor adjust and balance tlieir affairs for the com- 
mon safety. This plan recognized colonial customs, and is 
marked by the spirit of fraternity and patriotism, and by 
tliat aim at the common good which characterized the career 
of William Penn.^ 

In 1698, Charles Davenant, an English writer of note, 
discussed elaborately the question of colonial policy in a 
" Discourse on the Plantation Trade." Though he advo- 
cated an exercise of the full power of the mother country 
over the colonies, yet he urged also a principle constantly 
put forth by them ; namely, that, in any government that 
mi"ht be established over them, care should be taken to 



1 I copy this plan from the " New- York Colonial Documents," iv. 297. It is 
placed in the table of contents imder the date of Feb. 8, 1698: — 

MR. PEHN'S plan for A UNION OF THE COLONIES IN AMERICA. 

A brief aud plain scheme how the English colonies in the North parts of America, — viz., 
Boston, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jerseys, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Vir- 
ginia, and Carolina, — may be made more useful to the crown and one another's peace and 
safety with an universal concurrence. 

1. That the several colonics before mentioned do meet once a year, and oftener if need be 
during the war, and at least once in two years in times of peace, by their stated and appointed 
deputies, to debate and resolve of such measures as are most advisable for their better under- 
standing and the public tranquilhty aud safety. 

2. That, iu order to it, two persons, well qualified for sense, sobriety, and substance, be 
appointed by each province as their representatives or deputies, which in the whole make the 
congress to consist of twenty persons. 

3. That the king's commissioner, for that purpose specially appointed, shall have the chair 
and preside in the said congress. 

4. That they shall meet as near as conveniently may be to the most central colony for ease 
of the deputies. 

5. Since that may in all probability be New York, both because it is near the centre of the 
colonies and for that it is a frontier and in the king's nomination, the governor of that colony 
may therefore also be the king's high commissioner during the session, after the manner of 
Scotland. 

6. That their business shall be to hear and adjust all matters of complaint or difference be- 
tween province and province. As, 1st, where persons quit their own province and go to 
another, that they may avoid their just debts, though they be able to pay them ; 2d, where 
offenders fly justice, or justice cannot well be had upon such offenders in the provinces that 
entertain them ; 3d, to prevent or cure injuries in poiut of commerce ; 4th, to consider the 
ways and means to support the union and safetj' of these provinces against the public enemies. 
In which congress the quotas of men and charges will be much easier and more equally set than 
it is possible for any establishment made here to do ; for the provinces, knowing their own 
condition and one another's, can debate that matter with more freedom and satisfaction, aud 
better adjust and balance their affairs in all respects for their common safety. 

7. Th.it, in times of war, the king's liigh commissioner shall be general or chief commander 
of the several quotas upon service against the common enemy, as he shall be adv-sed, for the 
good and benefit of the whole. 



112 THE RISE OP THE BEPUBLIC. 

observe sacredly the charters and terms under which the 
emigrants, at the hazard of their lives, had effected dis- 
coveries and settlements. After giving an abstract of 
Penn's plan of union, he commended it as a " constitution" 
/'contrived with good judgment, and likened it to the Grecian 
j court of the Amphictyons. Among his suggestions is that 
\ of the formation of a " national assembly " for the consid- 
\ eration of all matters relative to the general welfare ; and 
1 one of his liberal remarks is, that the stronger and greater 
/ the colonies grow, " the more they would benefit the crown 
\ and the kingdom ; and nothing but such an arbitrary 
/ power as shall make them desperate can bring them to 
\ rebel."! 

^ In 1701, a Virginian printed in London " An Essay upon 
the Government of the English Plantations on the Conti- 
nent," in which the schemes of Penn and Davenant are 
sharply criticised. He held it to be a defect in the plan for 
the proposed general assembly, that it should consist of an 
equal number of deputies from each province, when the 
colonies were so vastly different in numbers, extent of ter- 
ritory, and the value of their trade ; and he suggested what 
he regarded as a more equal apportionment.^ He held that 
it would be unreasonable that the province of New York 
and its governor should be advanced in dignity above the 
rest of the colonies and tlieir governors, as would be the 
case if the general council always met in New York, and its 



1 " Davenant's Works," ii. 11. He thought that the danger that New England 
or other parts wouhl set up manufactures was very remote, as this was the last work 
of a people settled three or four hundred years. 

2 The writer of the essay (p. 69) proposed the deputies should be as follows: 
Virginia, four; Maryland, three; New York, two; Boston, three; Connecticut, 
two; Rhode Island, two; Pennsylvania, om^; the two Carolinas, one; and each of the 
two Jerseys, one. The title of this essay is as follows: " An Essay upon the Govern- 
ment of the English Plantations on the Continent of America. Together with some 
remarks upon the Discourse on the Plantation Trade, written by the author of the 
Essay on Ways, and Means, and published in the second part of his Discourses on 
the .Public Revenues, and on the Trade of England. By an American. Londor : 
1701." 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 113 

governor was the high commissioner. He proposed to obvi- 
ate this objection by forming five circuits, in each of which, 
in its turn, the deputies should liold their meetings. This 
wouhi enable them to become informed as to the condition 
of the whole continent, and it would tend to make the most 
considera1)le persons of each province personally acquainted. 
It would be looked upon as a part of a genteel education 
for the sons of the deputies to go in their company to 
these conventions. This essay urged the general considera- 
tions which have been already stated in favor of such a 
union. 

In 1722, Daniel Coxe, who held several high offices in 
New Jersey, printed a volume at London, intended to call 
public attejition to the designs of France. He proposed that 
all the British colonies on the continent should be "united 
under a legal, regular, and firm establishment, over which a 
lieutenant or supreme governor should be constituted and 
appointed to preside on the spot, to whom the governors of 
each colony should be subordinate ; " that " two deputies 
should be annually elected by the coimcil and assembly of 
each province^ who are to be in the nature of a great coun- 
cil or general convention of the states of the colonies," to 
consult for the good of the whole, and fix on the quotas of 
men or money that each government was to raise for the 
mutual defence, in which the governor-general was to have 
a negative ; and that the quota of each colony " sliould be 
levied and raised by its own assembly in such manner as 
they sliould judge most easy and convenient." Other pro- 
visions were left for future consideration. Coxe enforced 
this proposal in a spirited strain of remark. He portrayed 
the folly of the past disunion of the colonies, and urged 
that " a coalition or union would lay a sure and lasting 
foundation of dominion, strength, and trade." — "Let us 
consider," he said, " the fall of our ancestors, and grow wise 
by their misfortunes. If the ancient Britons had been 
united amongst themselves, the Romans, in all probability, 



114 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

had never become their masters : " they fought in separate 
bodies, and the whole island was subdued.^ 

These citations serve to show the germs of the union that 
grew into favor. It was to be formed on the basis of repre- 
sentation ; to be as extensive as the continent ; to be under 
one constitution ; and, while protecting the rights and in- 
terests of the colonists, was to be consistent with loyalty to 
the crown. But no great event had occurred to create a 
fraternal feeling between the colonies. Their rivalries were 
sharp, and their interests were distinct. Nor was there the 
common bond of joint memories. Though they were by no 
means political orphans, yet their sentiment of nationality 
was rooted in the glories of the mother country. Then 
whatever growing disposition to favor union there might 
have been was checked by the fact, that royal officials and 
others zealously urged this great step as a means to pro- 
mote the objects which they had in view. 

The party of the prerogative recommended union, or 
rather unity, during the whole period of seventy years. 
They regarded with alarm the growth of popular power in 
the colonies, and as a means to check it, they continually 
petitioned,^ that the various local governments might be con- 

1 Daniel Coxe was a son of a large land proprietor, had resided fourteen years in 
America, been speaker of the New Jersey Assembly, and had visited the most con- 
siderable colonies. His book is entitled " A Description of the English Province of 
Carolana, by the Spaniar Is called Florida, and by the French La Louisiane," &c. 
London, 1722. He was a judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, and died in 
office at Trenton, in May, 1739. — Smith's New Jersey, 427. 

2 Petitions of this character were sent over even bef)re the formation of the Lords 
of Trade Thus the Governor and Council of New York, after elaborate argument, 
say, in a petition (Aug. 6, 1691) to the king, '"There can be nothing in America 
more conducive to your majesty's dignitj' and advantage, and for the safety of j-our 
majesty's subjects upon this continent, than that Connecticut, East and West New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the three lower counties (Delaware), be rc-annexed to 3'our 
majesty's province (New York), which will then be a government of sufficient ex- 
tent." The main grievance alleged is a violation of the laws of trade. Nelson, of 
New York, in a memorial (Sept. 2-1, 1691), says, " I am now to make another remark 
on the principal and gre:\test defect and mistake in which we have been and are yet 
under. I mean the number and independency of so man}' small governments, 
whereby our strength is not only divided and weakened, but, bj' reason of their 
several interests, are become and do esteem each as foreigners, the one unto the other. 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 115 

solidated into one government over all the colonies, or at 
least into two or more large and powerful governments. 
Some recommended the establishment of a nobility. With 
this was connected the suggestion of taxation by parlia- 
ment. This line of recommendation liad so much weight 
with the Lords of Trade, and harmonized so completely 
with tlieir views and designs, that a remodelling of the 
internal affairs of the colonies and unity became at length 
the corner-stones of their policy. 

The petitions for the appointment of a general governor, 
and for a consolidation of the colonies, elicited, in 1697, an 
elaborate report in the Board on this subject. After stating 
the arguments of those who opposed this measure, the 
Report says that it required the exercise of a higher power, 
and was at that time impracticable. It, however, recom- 
mended to the crown the appointment of a military head of 
the several colonies. Accordingly, Lord Bellamont was 
soon commissioned as captain-general over the provinces of 
New Jersey, New York, New Hampshire, and Massachu- 
setts. / 

In 1701, Robert Livingston, of New York, in a letter to 
the Lords of Trade, recommended that " one form of gov- 
ernment be established in all the neighboring colonies on 
this continent," and that they be grouped into three divi- 
sions or unions. He proposed to divide Connecticut be- 
tween two of these governments, thus ignoring its charter- 
so that whatever mischiefs doth happen in one part, the rest, by the reason of this 
disunion, remain unconcerned and our strength thereby weakened ; whereas, were 
the colonies of New England, Hampshire, Riiode Island, Connecticut, New York 
joined in one," &c. — New-York Col. Doc , iv. 209. Colonel Robert Quarry, in a me- 
morial addressed (June 16, 170.3) to the Lords of Trade, gave an elaborate description 
of the internal concerns of the colonies, and especially as to the political opinions 
prevalent in them. He was high in the confidence of the Government, and was 
judge of admiralty in New York and Pennsylvania. He writes, "I may now say, 
that now or never is the time to support the queen's prerogative, and put a stop to 
those wrong, pernicious notions, which are improving daily, not only in Virginia, 
but in all her majesty's governments. ... I cannot recommend a more effectual 
means than what 1 formerly mentioned, — the reducing all her majesty's govern- 
ments on the main under one constitution and government as near as possible." 



116 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

privileges. He presented the solid argument in favor of his 
scheme, that, as the work of defence was a general concern, 
so it ought to be a general charge.^ 

In 1752, Archibald Kennedy, the receiver-general of New 
York, recommended a scheme of union in a pamphlet 
printed in London. He proposed that commissioners from 
all the colonies should meet annually in New York or 
Albany, to determine on the quotas each should contribute 
for the general defence, and that the exaction of these 
quotas should be enforced by act of parliament. He said, 
" From upwards of forty years' observations upon the con- 
duct of our colonial assemblies, and the little regard paid 
by them to instructions, if it is left altogether with them, 
the whole will end in altercation and words." He proposed 
to confer power on the commissioners to lay out and allot 
the lands on the frontiers of the colonies in townships, after 
the New-England manner, each to have sufficient territory 
for sixty families, and to be clear of all taxes and quit-rents 
for ten years, and also power to erect forts and block- 
houses and to regulate the trade with the Indians. He 
proposed that the colonies should jointly pay the expense 
of transporting emigrants to these townships. He referred 
to the provinces that formed the republic of Holland as a 
model for such a union, remarking that the very name of 
such a confederacy would strike terror into the French, and 
in twenty years put the whole fur-trade into British hands.^ 

In 1752, Governor Dinwiddle, of Virginia, recommended 
to the Board of Trade the formation of two great political 

1 This scheme of Livingston, dated May 13, 1701, recommended to the Lords of 
Trade, " That one form of goverment be established in all the neighboring colonies 
on this continent. That they be divided into three distinct governments, to wit: — 

"That Virginia and Mar3-lan'l be annexed to South iuid Xortli Cnro ina. 

" Tiiat some part of Connecticut, New York, East and West New Jersey, Penn- 
sylvania, and New Castle be added together. 

" And that to the Ma-sachusetts be added New Ilamjishire and Rhode Island 
and the rest of Connecticut." — New- York Col. Doc , iv. 874. 

2 Importance of Gaining and Preserving the Friendship of the Indians, &c 
London, 1752. 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS, 117 

divisions, — the northern and the southern ; and, connected 
with it, a scheme for an alliance between the Indians and 
all the British Indians on the continent. He urged tills 
plan with great zeal. 

The above review of the propositions for the formation 
of an American constitution shows the conception of union 
entertained by the popular party and by the prerogative 
men. They harmonized to a certain extent in their objects 
and views. They agreed in deploring the increasing evils 
of distinct and rival communities,^ in looking forward with 
confidence to benefits that would flow from a common 
polity, and in aiming at the statesman-like object of uni- 
formity in the laws. Both parties looked with pride on 
their connection with the mother-country, and desired such 
a constitution as would be consistent with their obligation 
to the crown. But the differences between the two par- 
ties in objects and views in other things w^ere important 
and vital. One party desired such a union as would rec- 
ognize and protect the customs and privileges, the capaci- 
ties and powers, the native traits of the American, — his 
spirit of freedom and equality, — the new society which had 
grown up naturally as the new race hewed their way into 
the wilderness and built up communities : the other party 
regarded this spectacle of a social system without an estab- 
lished aristocracy, or religion, or a nobility ,2 or hereditary 

1 Governor Hunter wrote to the Lords of Trade in 1715, " It is matter of wonder, 
that hitherto no effectual method has been thought of for uniting the divided strength 
of these provinces on the continent for the defence of the whole " — New-York 
Col. Doc, V. 417. 

2 Francis Bernard, in his ■' Principles of Law and Polity," &c., written in 1764, 
after he had been governor of New Jersey and while governor of Massachusetts, 
printed in Loudon, says (83), " To settle the American governments to the greatest 
possible advantage, it will be necessary to reduce the number of them; in some 
places to unite and consolidate; in others to separate and transfer; and in general 
to divide by natural boundaries instead of imaginary lines. If there should be but 
one form of government established for the North- American provinces, it would 
greatly facilitate the reformation of them. ... A nobility, appointed by the king for 
life and made independent, would probab'3' give s'reugth and stability to the Ameri- 
can governments as effectually as hereditaiy nobility does to that of Great Britain." 
He thought America would not be ripe for an hereditary nobility for many years to 
come. 



118 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

rulers, as dangerous ; and looked at the instrumentality of 
union, not merely to provide for the common defence, but 
to curb the rising popular power. One party sought union to 
establish equality of trade : the other party sought union 
to enforce the mercantile system. One party aimed to pre- 
serve the principle of local self-government in full vigor: 
the other party aimed to abridge its powers by the process 
of absorption, centralization, and consolidation. One party, 
in the conviction that reason would in time bring the colo- 
nies together, were in favor of a voluntary union : the other 
party, who regarded force to be all in all of government, 
advocated a compulsory union, with the design of having 
it enforced by an act of parliament. 

I have not been unmindful of the fact, that congresses^ 

1 It may be useful to state a few facts relating to these congresses. It would 
extend the note too f:ir to name all tlie interviews of governors with the Indians, 
and I select the most important. 

1684. — A convention was held at Albany, consisting of officials representing 
Virginia, New York, Massachusetts, and Marj-land, and the s;ichems of the Five 
Nations. See page 86. 

1693. — Governor Fletcher, of New York, pursu.nnt to a circular from the king, 
proposed a meeting of commissioners from the New England governments, Virginia, 
Maryland, and Pennsylvania, to be held at New York, to agree upon the quota of 
pien and money each should contribute for the common defence. He says (New-York 
Col. Doc, iv. 74) that "some sent commissioners, others none. Those that came 
pretended they could not proceed to act without a full meeting; so that design was 
frustrated." 

1694, Aug. 15. — Governor Fletcher, of New York; Governor Hamilton, of New 
Jersey; John Pynchon, Samuel Sewall, and Penn Townsend, of Massachusetts; and 
John Allen and Caleb Stanley, of Connecticut, as commissioners, met at Alban}' to 
hold a treaty with the Five Nations. Twenty-five sachems were present, who were 
accompanied by other Indians. — Holmes's Annals, i. 4.51. The object of the treaty 
was to prevent the Five Nations from making a peace with the French. Rev. Benja- 
min Wadsworth went with the Massachusetts commissioners. Ilis journal is in 
4 Mass. Coll., i. 102. 

1709, Oct. 14. — At the request of Colonel Vetch, a congress of several governors 
was held at New London, to cunsult on an intended expedition against Canada. 
The British fleet not arriving as was expected, nothing was done. — Hutchinson's 
Mass., ii. 161; Gordon, i. 104. 

1711, June 21. — In June, General Nichols ai arrived at Boston with the news 
that a fleet might be expected soon, and Avith her majesty's orders to attack Canada: 
bearing orders that the j;overnments of New England, New York, New Jersey, and 
Pennsylvania siiould have their quotas in readiness. A congress of governors was 
held at New London, on the 21st, who agreed upon the quotas for the several colo- 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 119 

and conventions were held at intervals during the period I 
have reviewed. They were convened under the authority 

nies. The offici^ils mentioned as present-are Hunter, Dudley, Saltonstall, Cranston, 
and Schuyler. The expedition under Nicholson and Walker met with disaster. — 
New-York Col. Doc., v. 257. Another congress was called this year at the suggestion 
of General Nicholson and Colonel Vetch. The circular is dated Boston, Nov. 13, 17 U, 
and commences, " The underwritten governors and persons deputed from her ma- 
jesty's government of the Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode 
Island, having used all means to obtain service of the Five Nations, dependent 
upon his majesty's government of New York, in the cannion service against the 
French and Indians of Ctmada, that have these nine years last past annoyed those 
her majesty's provinces, and at last moved a congress of the governors and deputy 
of the aforesaid governments to obtain the services of the Six Nations which we can 
come at." This circular was signed by Penn Townseud and Andrew Belcher of the 
Council of the Massachusetts Bay, and Addington Davenport and Thomas Hutchin- 
son of the assembly; Samuel I'enhallow of the council and Thomas Atkinson of the 
assembly of New Hampshire; also by Ff Nicholson and Samuel Fetch. — Mass. Ar- 
chives, ii. 454. Governor Hunter, in a reply dated Nov. 26, 1711, said he would 
lay the scheme before the assembly, and they (Smith's New York, 148) declared 
against it. 

1722, Sept. 10. — A congress was held at Albany, at which were present Gov- 
ernor Keith and four members of the Council of Pennsylvania, the governor and 
seven "commissioners for Indian affairs" from New York, and the chiefs of thfi 
Five Nations. Tanachaha was the Indian speaker. His words were translated into 
Dutch, and then by Robert Livingston into English. The former league was re- 
newed. The "Historical Register" for 1723 has the proceedings. Another con- 
gress was held at the same place on the 14th of September, which was attended by 
Burnett of New York, Spottswood of Virginia, and Keith of Pennsylvania. — New- 
York Col. Doc, v. 567. 

1744, June. — A congress was held at Lancaster, Penn. It consisted of commis- 
sioners from Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. They held a treaty with the 
deputies of Six Nations, who, with their followers and attendants, were two hun- 
dred and fiftj'-two. The journal of the secretary of the Maryland commissioners is 
in 1 Mass. Hist. Coll., vii. 172-201 ; Bancroft, iii. 455. 

1748, July 23. — A congress was held at Albany to cultivate friendship with the 
Six Nations and their ailies, and keep them in dependence on England. It con- 
sisted of the governor of New York, George Clinton, and Cadwallader Colden, Philip 
Living.".ton, James Delancy, and Archibald Kennedy of the New- York Council; the 
governor of Massachusetts, William Shirley, Thomas Hutchinson, Andrew Oliver, 
and John Choate as commissioners. There were present officers of " The Independ- 
ent Company" and several gentlemen of New York and Massachusetts, and a 
greater number of Indians than any person living had seen belore there. The 
Indians promised to send no delegation to Canada, and to keep their warriors in 
readiness whenever the English should call for them. — New- York Col. Doc , vi. 437. 
Clinton and Shirley, in a joint letter to the Lords of Trade, Aug. 18, 1748. advised 
that the quotas each colony was to raise should be fixed by roval instruction: 
and that it was requisite "to think of some measure to enforce them." Oliver, 
Hutchinson, and Choate of Massachusetts united in a similar memorial. — Ban- 
croft, iv. 29. • 



120 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

of the crown. They were called to fix on tlie quotas of 
men and money which each colony was expected to raise 
for the common defence, and to hold treaties with the 
Indians. Tliey were composed of governors, or prominent 
characters, called usually commissioners. The details rela- 
ting to these congresses are voluminous, and the proceedings 
not without interest and importance. The treaty concluded 
in 174-1:, at Lancaster, with the Indians, was appealed to by 
the English in tlie beginning of the great struggle for do- 
minion in America, to fortify their title to the soil as against 
France. The prominent members of the congress of 1748 
petitioned the king that measures might be taken to compel 
the colonies to contribute their quotas for the common de- 
fence ; it being considered a vital object to preserve peace 
with the Six Nations. In the congress of 1751, Governor 
Clinton of New York, as he handed a belt to their chiefs, 
told them that one of the commissioners was from South 
Carolina, which, being a great way off, had never sent one 
before. He said, " I now, by this belt, in your father the 
king of Great Britain's name, and in behalf of all his ma- 
jesty's subjects in North America, renew and confirm the 
covenant chain. ... If all the Indian nations united in 
friendship with Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, 



1751, July 6. — Governor George Clinton invited all the governors fi-oni New 
Hampshire to South Carolina to join with him in an interview with the Six Nations, 
and the other nations depending on them, to defeat the intrigues of the French, and 
to prevent their encroachments on the Indian territory' which Great Britain claimed 
under the treaty of Utrecht. He also invited the colonies to send proper presents to 
make to the Indians; but the assemblies, including that of New York, generally de- 
clined, excepting ilassachusetts, Connecticut, and Soutli Carolina. The latter seat a 
commissioner and six Indian (ielegates, together witii a present, much too small, 
however, to answer a good purpose. — Clinton's Letter, Jan. 13, 175 1. This was the 
first time South Carolina sent commissioners to a Congress. The six Indians were 
from the Catawbas, who had been the hereditary' enemies of the Six Nations. Tho 
commissioners were from New York, Governor Clinton, and of the council Cadwalla- 
der Colden, James Alexander, James Delancy, and Edward Hollaud; from Massa- 
chusetts, Jacob Wendell, Joseph D wight, and Oliver Partridge; from Connecticut 
Williiim Pitkin and John Chester; and from South Carolina W'illiam Bull, Jr. "A 
Journal of the Connnissiouors " of Massachusetts is in "Mass. Archives," xxxviii 
160. 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 121 

this government (New York), Connecticut, Massachusetts 
Bay, New Hampshire, were truly and firmly united in the 
same council with love and friendship, how great would 
that power he ! What dread it would strike all their ene- 
mies ! And who would dare attempt to hurt them! " The 
proceedings of these congresses show a hahit of joint action 
in colonial affairs, and embrace much Indian talk. They 
were not, however, connected with popular movements ; but 
they belong to the order of events that occur and leave no 
marked impress on the times. 

The crown was exceedingly jealous of any movement of 
the colonies in behalf of concert of action, without its sanc- 
tion. It was not unusual for the general assemblies to cor- 
respond with each other, without the intervention of the 
executive, in relation to tlie common defence. In 1697, 
the Massachusetts Assembly addressed a circular letter to 
the assemblies as far south as Maryland, describing the 
state of the colonial forces at Newfoundland, and asking 
aid for them;-^ and, in 1723, it sent a similar letter to the 
neighboring governments, inviting their co-operation in the 
war against the Indians. About this time the same assembly 
suggested that a convention of the colonies should be held, 
which was pronounced at the Board of Trade a mutinous 
proposal.^ A convention of the ministers was held in Bos- 
ton in 1725. In view of a great and visible decay of piety, 
" the growth of many miscarriages," and the fact that forty 
years had passed since the churches had held a synod, the 
convention agreed on an address to the general court, ask- 
ing it to appoint the time to hold one. The two branches 
disagreed, and the matter was postponed.^ On hearing 
of this proposition, the Lord's Justices, in a letter, repri- 
manded those officials who had assented to it, terming 
the proposition an invasion of his majesty's supremacy.* 

The above narrative of events having a bearing on the 

1 Mass. Archives, iii. 58. 2 Hutchinson's j\Iass., iii. 119. 

8 Ibid , ii. 293. 4 Mdss. Archives, Iii. 301. 



J.22 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

idea of uniou embraces many facts ^Yhicll show llio condi- 
tion of self-government. The development of this prin- 
ciple was seen in social life, as the American, imbued with 
a spirit of individual freedom, went on quietly creating his 
own proper sphere of action as the unit of a free State. He 
was met by laws enacted by parliament forbidding him to 
manufacture certain articles and restricting him in the 
petty detail of trade. This incited him to reason on 
the natural right of labor to choose its fields, and to enjoy 
its earnings.^ His conclusions, after a manner, justified the 
practice which ignored such laws as violated the most sa- 
cred rights of mankind.^ It is easy now to see that this 
was a part of tlie process in America of solving the prob- 
lem, how a large measure of individual liberty may be 
combined with obedience to every requirement of just law, 
how a high degree of self-govermuent may exist and be con- 
sistent with the performance of every patriotic duty to the 
nation. Again, it is easy to see that this development of 
individual freedom was quietly undermining the old pater- 
nal theory of government. Tliis was based on the idea that 
the body of the people do not possess the capacity to take 
care of their own personal concerns, but require to be con- 
trolled in their dress, diet, business, and opinions. I can, 
however, only thus casually refer to the social side of this 
subject, — the theme in hand requiring an adherence to 
facts more strictly political. 



1 The succession of acts discouraging the Americans from manufacturing — too 
often related to need more than a reference — provoked sharp queries. In tlie 
" Boston Gazette " of April 29, 1765, is the following: " Whose natural right is in- 
fringt-d by tlie erection of an American windmill, or the occupation of a watennill on 
a man's own land, provided he does not tiood his neighbors? ... A colonist cannot 
make a button, a horseshoe, nor a hob-nail, but some sooty ironmonger or respectable 
button-maker of Britain shall bawl and squall that his honor's worship is most 
ogregiously maltreated, injured, cheated, and robbed by the rascally American re- 
publicans." 

2 McCulloch's Smith, 261. Smith remarks (262), that, though the policy of 
Great Britain was dictated by the same mercantile spirit as that of other nations, it 
had, upon the whole, been less illiberal and oppressive tliau that of any of them. 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 123 

The fidelity of the colonists to the principle of local self- N 
government was constant through the whole of this period I 
(1G90 to 17G0). It is an interesting fact, that Europeans, [ 
by advertisements in tracts and newspapers, were promised, > 
on their arrival and settlement in America, a share in \ 
making the laws under which they were to live. This / 
formed, to many, one of the inducements to leave their na- 
tive land, and meet the hardships in the life of a pioneer. 
The promise was vague in its terms ; hut tliere were no 
such exceptions in the charters or the advertisements as 
that innnigrants, in their new liomes, should not be allowed 
to make their own clothes, should not work up their rags 
into paper, should not carry the wool wliicli they might 
grow over a river to a market, should not sell a hat to each 
other. And even after the acts severely restrictive on labor 
were passed, it might have been said, to do away with the 
unfavorable impression, that they were in a great measure 
inoperative in the colonies.-^ It was held out as an induce- 
ment to emigrate, that the lands were so productive as to 
render it certain that industry would enable the emigrant 
to better liis condition, and that he would enjoy large civil 
liberties. 

The colonies held these liberties under general powers 
derived from the crown. As time rolled on, they were more 
and more prized, as they were embodied in their free institu- 
tions. Ardent as was the attachment of the people of each 
colony to its local polity, still they went beyond it to meet 
and satisfy the great sentiment of country. They claimed 
to be in partnership with a noble empire. Tiiey regarded 
their connection with the mother country to be a fountain 
of good. They looked upon the English Constitution as 
their own. It was said in the press, " Our Constitution is 
English, wliich is another name for free and luippy ; and 

1 Governor Bernard, iu a letter dated Jan. 7, 1764, says, " The publication of 
orders for the strict execution of the Molasses Act has caused a greater alarm in this 
country than the taking of Fort William Henry did in 1757." 



124 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

is without doubt tlie pei-fectcst model of civil government 
that has ever been in the world." ^ The colonists claimed 
the advantage of the great moral discoveries of Habeas 
Corpus and Trial by Jury, of a Popular Representation and 
a Free Press.^ It was through the provisions of law that 
had grown up under their local governments that these dis- 
coveries, fraught with perennial blessings, were brought to 
their doors. In a word, they aimed to preserve their liber- 
ties and also to preserve their union with Great Britain. 
The banner of St. George was to the subject in the colonial 
age what tlie flag of the Stars and Stripes is to the citizen 
of the United States. 

The royal governors, in dealing with the representative 
branches of their several governments, came directly in con- 
tact with this development of self-government. They re- 
garded some of the pretensions set up by the general 
assemblies as invasions of the royal prerogative. They 
characterized the colonies as imbued with pernicious politi- 
cal principles, as animated by a spirit of disobedience to 
law, and as aiming at throwing off their dependence on the 
crown.^ They were continually invoking a vigorous asser- 
tion of the prerogative, or of the power of parliament, by 
remodelling the local governments, and with a view of 
checking the growth of popular power. 

These representations were sent to successive British 

1 Independent Advertiser, May 29, 1749. 

2 Sir James Mackintosh (Edinbiirgli Review, Oct. 1821) says, " The glory of 
England is the e-^tablishment of liberty in a great empire. To her belong the great 
moral discoveries of Habeas Corpus and Trial by Jury, of a Popular Representation 
and a Free Press These institutions she sent forthwith her colonies into the wilder- 
ness. By these institutions they have grown into a great nation." 

8 In 1701. when a court in New Hampshire refused to allow an appeal to the 
king, the Lords of Trade wrote to Lord Bellamont, '' This declining to admit appeals 
to his majesty in council is a matter that you ought very carefully to watch against 
in mU your governments. It is a humor that prevails so much in proprietary and 
charter colonies, and the independency tliej' thirst after is now so notorious, that it 
has been thought fit these considerations, together with other objections against these 
colonies should be laid before parliament; and a bill has thereupon been brought 
into the House of Lords for re-uniting the right of government in th ir colonies to 
the crown " — Belknap's New Ilamp., i 247. 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 125 

ministers, who were always sensitive on the point of sover- 
eignty, and were zealous for the prerogative or for the par- 
liament, as the tory or the whig schools predominated. 
Their spirit in dealing with the rising colonies is seen in the 
royal instructions, which aimed to restrain the liberty of 
the press, thus denying to the colonists freedom of mind, 
and in refusing to allow them the writ of habeas corpus^ 
which deprived them of the great guard of personal lib- 
erty.^ It is seen in the instructions that were given to the 
governors, from time to time, to maintain the prerogative ; 
in the successive measures brought forward in parliament 
to override the charters, and to enlarge the powers of the 
Board of Trade ; and in the conclusion that was reached to 
revise the local governments. At length, in 1750, at a 
meeting of the Privy Council, the Lords of Trade were di- 
rected to propose such measures as would retain and estab- 
lish the prerogative in its utmost extent throughout the 
colonies. All branches of the home government deter- 
mined to shape the colonies into new modes of being, and 
no other pattern was thought of than that of England.^ 

An exercise of the royal prerogative by the governors, 
which was regarded by the assemblies to be illegal, evoked 
in the colonies a sturdy defence of the rights that they held 
to be constitutional. The struggles between these branches 
were at times severe and acrimonious. A glance at a few 
of the issues raised, will show the political situation when 
the crown invited the assemblies to deliberate on the great 
question of union. 

In New Hampshire, the issue turned on the question of 
representation, which the crown held was a privilege that 
it might give or withhold at its pleasure, but which the 
colonies held was a riglit to which they were entitled under 
the law. In the course of the long controversy, the Lords 
Justices directed the governor to issue the king's writ to 

1 Chalmers's Revolt of the Colonies, i. 307. 

2 Bancroft, iv. 55, 92. 



126 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

choose representatives only to a portion of the towns, and 
this with a view to strengthen the prerogative. The people 
were so sturdy in their opposition to arbitrary power, that, 
in 1751, they were represented by royal officials to be in 
rebellion.^ In Massachusetts, the issue for many years was 
mainly on the salary of the governors, royal instructions di- 
recting that they should be settled and made permanent, so 
that the governors might be independent of successive as- 
semblies ; while the assemblies held that the grants should 
be made annually, in order to insure responsibility. At this 
time (1754), William Sliirley was the governor, who was a 
champion of the prerogative, and was the most prominent 
political character in the colonies.^ In New York, the con- 
troversies 'between the two branches had been carried on 
with great heat ; and the governors repeatedly represented 
that the assembly and the people aimed to throw off his 
majesty's authority.^ In no colony was the claim of the 
assembly to be a free deliberative body put forth earlier or 
maintained with more intelligence and tenacity than it was 
in Virginia.* Although there had been great political tran- 



1 Belknap (ii. 209) gives a clear view: of this controversy, and remarks on the 
documents of the two parties, that the style of the governors' messages was peremp- 
torj' and severe; and that the answers and remonstrances of the assemblies were 
calm but resolute, and in some instances satirical. 

2 The same party who maintained the charter-privileges in the time of Charles II. 
and James II. continued to be the advocates of popular rights under their successors. 
Minot remarks (Hist, of Mass. i. 51), ''From this period (1683) we may date the 
origin of two parties, — the patriots and prerogative men, — between whom contro- 
versy scarcely intermitted and war never ended until the separation of the two coun- 
tries." 

3 Governor Clinton, April 3, 1750 (New-York Col. Doc, vi. 556), represented to 
the Duke of Bedford that such " were the usurpations of the assembly on the pre- 
rogative, that it assumed the whole executive powers of government." James 
Alex;tnder and Robert Morris (Dec. 23, 1746) adduced two riots at Newark as "at- 
tempts 1o throw off his majesty's authorit}'^ and their dependence on the British 
throne," and they said that the infection was spreading. — New-York Col. Doc, vi. 
327. 

4 Colonel Quarry, a judge of the admiralty, of the council of five governments 
at one time, — New York, New Jersey', I'ennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, — in 
his memorial of 1703, says that Virginians consider tlieir province " of far greater 
importance to her majesty than all the rest of the provinces on the Maine, and there- 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 127 

quillity in South Carolina, yet its governor complained that 
the whole power was in the hands of the people. 

It would require too much space to describe these local 
controversies. They elicited a world of political writing. 
This constitutes to-day dreary reading. The governors came 
over with high idaas of their own importance, and with not 
a little of the feudal spirit, which regarded the possessors 
of power as the holders of so much personal property that 
tliey might turn to their own private uses ; wliile the assem- 
blies were imbued with the spirit of the great idea, that 
government is an agency or trust, which was to be exercised 
for tlie common good. It is, however, not necessary to 
maintain that the governors were always wrong in their 
positions, or that the assemblies were always right in their 
motliods ; but it was the steady aim of the governors, of 
their superiors and the end of their own action to check the 
growth of popular power, while it was the object of the 
assemblies to defend their constitutional rights. They were 
met by the indefinite, imperious, and mysterious claims of 
the royal prerogative, which were urged by needy gov- 
ernors with an arrogance and conceit that made the claims 
doubly offensive. This was occurring constantly through 
the colonial age. It is difficult to say precisely what the 
prerogative was. As defined by the great jurist of that age, 
it was something out of the ordinary course of common law, 
and inherent in the royal dignity.^ As a practical thing, 

fore they falsely conclude that they ought to have greater privileges than the rest of 
her majesty's subjects. The asseinblj' conclude themselves entitled to all the rights 
and privileges of an English parliament, and begin to se:irch into tlie records of 
that honoi'able house for precedents to govern themselves by. The council have 
vanity enough to think that they almost stand upon equal terms with the Right 
Honorable tlie House of Lords. These false and pernicious notions, if not timely 
prevented, will have ver}' ill consequences. ... As I have already hinted to your 
Lordships, commonwealth notions improve daily; and, if they be not checked in 
time, the rights and privileges of English subjects will be thought too narrow." — 
3 Miiss. Hist. Coll., vii. 233, 235. 

1 Blackstone began to read lectures on law in 1753. He thus defines the 
prerogative: "By the word prerogative we usually understand that special pre- 
eminence which the king hath over and above all other persons, and out of the 



128 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

embodied in royal instructions and applied to the detail of 
affairs, it embraced well nigh the whole field of administra- 
tion. It was in theory utterly hostile to the principle of local 
self-government. In meeting it, the members of the assem- 
blies often manifested a zeal and an ability worthy of admi- 
ration. In doing this, they were ever mindful to keep in view 
their readiness to recognize a just claim for the prerogative.^ 
Indeed, whether tlie colonists spoke through the assembly 
or the press, the liberty which they defended never meant 
an absence of law. A sentence of tlie press runs, " It would 
fill us with the deepest shame and grief, could we be justly 
charged with really opposing that sacred ordinance from 
heaven, civil government." ^ 

The executive speeches and the replies of the assemblies 
elicited in these local contests were widely circulated in the 
press. The newspapers had a too intimate connection 



ordinary course of common law, in right of his regal dignity. It signifies in its 
etymology (from prce and rogo) something that is required and demanded before 
or in preference to others. Arid hence it follows that it must be in its nature 
singular and excentrical; that it can only be Mpplied to those rights and capacities 
which the king enjoys alone in contradistinction to others, and not to those which 
he enjoys in common with any of his subjects: for, if once any prerogative of the 
crown could be held in common with the subject, it would cease to be prerogative 
any longer. And, therefore. Finch lays it down as a maxim, that the prerogative is 
that law in the case of the kins, which is law in no case of the subject." — Commen- 
taries, i. 239. 0\\ which Professor St. George Tucker (ed. of Blackstone, ii. 2-39), 
whose notes were printed in 1803, remarks, " This definition of prerog itive is 
enough to make a citizen of the United States shudder at the recollection that he 
was bo'.n uivler a government in which such doctrines are received a« catholic." 

1 The tone of the prerogative men and the assemblies is illustrated in the mes- 
sages that passed, 1753, between the executive and the legislature of New York. The 
lieut.-governor, James DcLancy, in a speech, said, " His majesty i« displeased at the 
neglect and contempt shown to his ro^'al commission and instructions by your pass- 
ing laws of so extraordinary a niture, and by your unwarrantable proceedings." 
The council replied, that its action was taken from their view of the exigency in 
afFa'rs, and " not with any view to encroach on his majesty's prerogative; " and the 
house replied, that it wa« "greatly at a loss to discover in what instance the peace 
and tranquillity of the colony had been disturbed, or wherein ordir and govern- 
ment had been subverted, or what there was to justify certain malicious misrepre- 
sentations to their most gracious sovereign," having^ not the least thought or most 
distant inclination to invade, lessen, or dimmish any of his majesty's just or right- 
ful prerogatives." — Boston Evening Post, Nov. 26, 1753. 

2 Independent Advertiser, Dec. 6, 1749. 






LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 129 

with the formation of public sentiment to allow their ap- 
pearance to pass without remark. The first permanent 
newspaper in the colonies was established in Boston in 
1704, and in about half a century journals were printed 
in ten of the thirteen colonies.^ This is the most efficient 
instrument used in the political world ; for " nothing but a 
newspaper can drop the same thought into a thousand minds 
at the same moment."^ It soon began to play a great part 
in American history. The springs of this history are not 
to be found so much in the foresight and wise planning of a 
few, however great and essential may have been individual 
worth and influence, as in the impulses and aims of the 
many. At epochs in public affairs, the body of the people, 
at the call of some great riglit, or by the commission of 
some great wrong, have instinctively and spontaneotisly 
joined in a common effort, when society has been impelled 
forward by a master-passion, until the culmination of great 
crises. In these periods, the newspaper has been a power- 
ful agency, not merely by passionate appeals, but by virtue 
of its prime office of collecting and circulating intelligence ; 



1 The first newspaper that was printed in the colonies was entitled " Public 
Occurrences, both Foreign and Domestic," dated Boston, Thursday, Sept. 25, 1690, 
One number only was printed. It is republished in the " Historical Magazine" for 
August, 1857, from a copy made by Dr. Samuel A. Green, from an impression pre- 
served in the Colonial State Paper Office in London. The first permanent news- 
paper was " The Boston News Letter." The first number is dated " from Monday, 
April 17 to Monday, April 24, 1704." The second was " The Boston Gazette," Dec. 21. 
1719. The first printed in Philadelphia was " The American," — Dec. 22, 1719. The 
first in New York was " The New-York Gazette from Monday, Oct. 16 to Oct. 23, 
1725; " the first in Marj'land was " The Maryland Gazette," printed at Annapolis in 
June, 1728 ; the first in South Carolina was " The South-Carolina Gazette," printei at 
Charleston, Jan. 8, 1732; the first one in Rhode Island was " The Riiode-Island 
Gazette," printed at Newport, Sept. 27, 1732; the first in Virginia was "The Vir- 
ginia Gazette," printed at Williamsburg in 1736; the first in Connecticut was 

The Connecticut Gazette," Jan. 1, 1755, printed at New Haven; the first in North 
Carolina was " The North-Carolina Gazette," printed at Newbern, December, 1755; 
the first in New Hampshire was "The New Hampshire Gazette," printed at Ports 
mouth, and dated " Friday, August, 1756." Thus, prior to 1760, journals had been 
printed in all the colonies except Delaware, New Jersej', and Georgia. — Thomas"!< 
History of Printing. 

2 De Tocqueville's Democracy, ii. 135. 

9 



^ 



130 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

by disseminating the facts that enabled the public opinion 
of one community or political centre to act on other com- 
munities. In thus adding to the momentum, the newspaper 
chronicles the progress of popular movements, and, after 
its temporary office, it remains to do historical service. It 
is a dial wliich measures and marks the play of the inner 
forces of society, as the meter marks the passage of the 
sources of light. The pages of an unfettered press are 
a mirror which reflects the past of a collective life, when 
it was stirred by fear, when it glowed with hope, when it 
was inspired into heroic action by the presence and the 
power of great ideas. 

The press, about a century ago, was circulating the great 
facts that Prance had communication by water along the 
whole continent from Cape Breton to the mouth of the 
Mississippi River; and, contrary to the spirit of solemn trea- 
ties, was building forts and effecting settlements on the 
Oliio.^ It was said that this was the finishing stroke of 
a series of ambitious and dreaded encroachments which 
" called aloud upon the whole British continent of America 
to rise as one man," and enter into a well-concerted project 
of resistance.^ Several governors sent accurate and minute 
relations of this aggression to the Lords of Trade. 

That Board had for many years been indifferent to this 
progress of the French. It was said, that, while England 
readily granted generous subsidies to petty German princes, 
to preserve the balance of power in Europe, it neglected to 
maintain its undoubted rights in America.^ In 1748, Lord 
Halifax was placed at its liead;^ and on the 11th of March, 
1752, it was intrusted, by an order of the Privy Council, 
with the duties of corresponding with the colonies except 

1 It was stated in the " Gentleman's Magazine " for Januarj', 1752, page 40, that 
the French, with an army, had gone into the southwest parts of North America, and 
were building forts. 

2 The New-York Weekly Gazette of Sept. 23, 1754, in an elaborate summary of 
the state of the continent. 

8 T,ondon Magazine, August, 1754. 4 Bancroft, iv. 36. 



A 

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 131 

on special occasions, and with the nomination of the entire 
list of their civil officers. Halifax gave much attention to 
colonial affairs. He looked upon America as a vast continent 
whicli Great Britain miglit rule and use for its own benefit ; 
and he soon promised to consider those defects in the local 
constitutions which embodied elements regarded by him as 
destructive of all order and government.^ One of the mem- 
bers of this Board was Charles Townshend, a young orator 
of brilliant talents, who liad made his mark in parliament. 
He was indefatigable in the study of colonial questions, 
and was warmly in favor of remodelling tlie local govern- 
ments. The Lords of Trade were occupied with schemes 
for a new colonial administration, when the expulsion of the 
English traders from the valley of the Miami prompted 
royal officials in America to ask for specific instructions to 
regnlate their conduct. 

The crown at length determined to contest the claims of 
France. The Secretary of State, Earl Holdernesse, in a cir- 
cular ,2 dated Aug. 28, 1753, addressed to the governors, in- 

1 Bancroft, iv. 41. 

2 The circulars named in the text are connected in the documents of the conven- 
tion, and constitute the official calls. In the circular of the Earl of Holdernesse to 
the governors in America (Whitehall, Aug. 28, 1753), he said, " In case the subjects 
of any foreign prince or State should presume to make any encroachments on the 
limits of his majesty's dominions, or to erect forts on his majesty's land, or commit 
any other act of hostility, j'ou are immediately to represent the injustice of such 
proceeding, and to require them to forthwith desist froni any such unlawful under- 
taking; but if . . . they should still persist, you are then to draw forth the armed 
force of the province, and to use your best endeavors to repel force by force. But, as 
it is his majesty's determination not to be the aggressor, I have the king's com- 
mands most strictly to enjoin you not to make use of the armed force under your 
direction excepting within the undoubted limits of his majestv's dominions. ... In 
case ... of any hostile attempts, j^ou are immediately to assemble the general assem- 
blj', and lay before them the necessity of a mutual assistance, and engage them to 
grant such supplies as the exigency of affairs may require." 

The Lords of Trade sent to the governor of New York an elaborate letter, direct 
ing a congress to be called, dated Sept. 18, 1754 ; and the following circular was sent 
to the governors of New Jersey, Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Mary- 
land, and Pennsylvania : — 

To Jonathan Belcher, Esquire, Governor of New Jersey. 
Sir, — His majesty having been pleased to order a sum of money to be issued for presents 
to the Six Nations of Indians, and to direct his governor of New York to hold an interview 



132 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

fitructed them first to protest against any encroachments on 
his majesty's dominions ; and, if this should prove unavail- 
ing, then to use their best endeavors to muster the militia 
of the colonies, and repel force by force. The Lords of 
Trade, in a letter of the 18th of September, 1753, sent 
to several of the governors, required them to recommend to 
their respective assemblies to appoint commissioners to meet 
in convention, and hold a treaty with the Six Nations; and, 
by making presents and in other ways, prevent them from 
aiding the French, or uniting with the Indians under French 
influence. The objects of the proposed convention, more 
precisely specified, were to determine whether the colonies 
would " confirm and establish the ancient friendship of the 
Five Nations," and would " enter into articles of union and 
confederation with each other for the mutual defence of his 
majesty's subjects and interests in North Americft, as well 
in time of peace as war." The governor of New York, in 
a separate letter, was directed to fix on the time and place 
for holding the convention, and " to take care that all the 
provinces be comprised, if practicable, in one general trea- 
ty." This was the second call for an American congress 
based on the principle of representation, or for a body to be 
composed of delegates chosen by the several assemblies. 



with them for delivering those presents, for burying the hatchet, and for renewing the cove- 
nant chain with them, we think it our duty to acquaint you therewith. And as we find it has 
been usual, upon former occasions, when an interview has been held with those Indians, for 
all his majesty's colonies whose interest and security is connected with and depends upon 
them, to join in such interview ; and as the present disposition of those Indians, and the 
attempts which have been made to withdraw them from the British interest, appears to us to 
make such a general interview more particularly necessary at this time, — we desire you will lay 
this matter before the council and general assembly of the province under your government, 
and recommend to them fortViwith to make a proper provision for appointing commissioners, 
to be joined with those of the other governments, for renewing the cov^Hk^^ain with the 
Six Nations, and for making such presents to them as has been usuiilJ^^^Pfce occasions. 
And we desire, that, in the choice and nomination of commissioners, yoMwifl take care that 
they are men of character, ability, and integrity, and well acquainted with mjdian iiffuirs. 

As to the time and place of meeting, it is left to the governor of Ne .v Yorwto fix it ; and he 
has orders to give you early notice of it. — We are, sir, 

Your very loving friends and humble servants, 

Dunk Halifax. 

Jam : Grknvillk. 
Whitehall, Sept. 18, 1753. Dui-plin. 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 133 

This proposition of the crown connected two objects, 
which require to be kept distinct from each other in a nar- 
rative, as they were in the public mind. 

Over half a century before, the colonists had earnestly 
called the attention of the ministry to the claims and en- 
croachments of the French. One of their early petitions to 
the king termed Canada " the unhappy fountain whence had 
issued all their miseries ; " ^ and since the sack of Schenec- 
tady, its reduction had been a passion with them. The blood 
they had shed in the battle-fields of three colonial wars 
attested their heroism and patriotism. They welcomed the 
decision of the crown as implying an assurance tliat a great 
burden was about to be removed, and some of the colonies 
enthusiastically prepared to second the efforts of the gov- 
ernment. It is only necessary to refer to the interesting 
train of events that opened the great field of war ; the pro- 
ceedings of the Ohio Company in occupying a large tract 
of western territory ; the expulsion by the French of Ameri- 
can traders from the banks of the Ohio ; the mission of 
George Washington, and his early campaigns in the wilds 
of America. A speech he delivered to his command, on 
formally proclaiming war, is characteristic of the patriotism 
that was personified in his long career, and of the loyalty 
that animated the Americans. " Let us," Washington said, 
" show our willing obedience to the best of kings, and, by a 
strict attachment to his royal commands, demonstrate the 
love and loyalty we bear to his sacred person ; let us, by 
rules of unerring bravery, strive to merit his royal favor, 
and a better establishment as a reward for our services." ^ 

1 Representation of Lieutenant-governor and Council of Massachusetts to the 
king, Sept. 24, 1756. This prays his majesty " to take under his royal consideration 
tlie reducing of Canada." 

2 War was not formally declared between France and England, until May 19, 1756. 
Washington, then a colouel, was at Winchester. The address contained in the 
following letter is not referred to by Marshall. Sparks, Irving, or other biographers 
•whose works I have seen. I copy from the " Pennsylvania Gazette " of Sept. 16, 
1756: "Winchester, Aug. 17, 1756. On Sunday, Colonel Washington having re- 
ceived his majesty's declaration of war against the French king, with the governor's 



134 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

There was not merely a public opinion in favor of the expul- 
sion of the French, but a conviction that it was essential to 
the security of the colonies. 

Tlie proposition of the crown for a convention to form a 
union was differently received. It was submitted and ear- 
nestly urged by governors who had been zealous for the royal 
prerogative. Indeed, the executive v^^hora the crown had 
instructed to rule New York in the spirit of James II., was 
selected to take the lead in this vital measure.^ The lan-- 

command to proclaim it in the most solemn manner, lie ordered the three companies 
of the Virginia regiment at this place to appear under arms on the grand parade, at 
three o'clock on the evening of the next day; when, iittended by the principal gentle- 
men of this town, the}' marched in regular order to Fort London, where, the soldiery 
being properly drawn up, tlie declaration was read aloud, his majesty's and many 
other loyal healths were drank, success to his mnjesty's arms, and a total extirpa- 
tion of the French out of America, under a triple discharge of the artillery and 
three rounds of musketry, with loud acclamations of the people. After this, they 
marched in regular order round the town, proclaimed it at the cross streets, and, being 
returned to the grand parade, it was again read, and the men dismissed by Colonel 
Washington with the following exhortation: 'You see, gentlemen soldiers, that it 
has pleased our most gracious sovereign to declare war in form against the French 
king, and (for divers good causes, but more particularly for their ambitions usurpa- 
tions and encroachments on his American dominions) to pronounce all the said 
French king's subjects and vassals to be enemies to his crown and dignity, and hath 
willed and required all his subjects and people, and in a more especial manner com- 
manded his captain-general of his forces, his governors, and all other his command- 
ers and officers, to do and execute all acts of hostility in the prosecution of this just 
and honorable war; and though our utmost endeavors can contribute but little to 
the advancement of his majesty's honor and the interest of his governments, yet let 
us show our willing obedience to the best of kings, and, by a strict attachment to 
his royal commands, demonstrate the love and loyalty we bear to his sacred person ; 
let us, by rules of unerring bravery, strive to merit his royal favor, and a better estab- 
lishment as a reward for our services.' " 

1 The spirit of the government is embodied in the instructions of the Lords 
of Trade to the governor of New York, dated Aug. 13, 1753 ; and it is worthy of 
remark that they were printed in the American papers and in the " Gentleman's Maga- 
zine " of February, 1754. In the preamble, his majesty avers that the assembly had 
"trampled upon" the roj^al prerogative and authority; had assumed to them- 
selves the disposal of the public money; and that some of the council had "joined 
and concurred with the assembly" in these unwarrantable measures. The gover- 
nor was directed to recommend a permanent revenue for defraying the necessary 
charges of the government, and to take care that "such law shall be indefinite and 
without limitation." All moneys raised for the supply of the government were to 
be applied by a warrant from the governor and council, though the assembly were 
to be permitted, from time to time, "to view and examine the accounts of money 
disposed of." Horace Walpole said that " these instructions seemed better calculated 
for the latitude of Mexico, and for a Spanish tribunal, tlian for a free, rich, Britisii 
settlement." 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 135 

guage of the governors, in submitting the proposition to the 
assemblies, was earnest, high-toned, and patriotic, and con- 
tained no allusions to alterations in the local constitutions 
or to taxation. Their spirit is seen in the messages of 
Governors Shirley of Massachusetts, and Belcher of New 
Jersey. They portrayed in glowing terms the progress of 
the French, as marked by their line of forts from Canada 
to tlfe mouth of the Mississippi ; their denial of the riglit of 
the English to trade with the Indians ; the danger the colo- 
nies would be in, should the sixteen thousand warriors of 
the Six Nations go over to the French ; the wisdom of estab- 
lishing " one general league of friendship comprising all 
his majesty's colonies," and the proof of paternal care his 
majesty had given in directing the governors to promote 
this union. " In forming this union," Shirley said, " there 
is no time to be lost. The French seem to have advanced 
themselves further towards making themselves masters of 
the continent within the last five or six years than they 
have done since the first beginning of their settlements upon 
it." These messages announced that the convention would 
be held at Albany on the 14th of June.^ The enthusiasm 
in behalf of this measure was confined to the circle of royal 
officials. The newspapers contain but few references to it. 
I have not met with an account of a single public meeting 
in favor of it. The " Philadelphia Gazette," conducted by 
Franklin, had the union device with the motto " Join or 
Die ; " 2 and the measure was urged in pamphlets. Only 
seven of the assemblies appointed commissioners. 

1 The speech of Governor Shirley is dated April 2, 1754, and occupies one half 
of the "Bostrun Gazette" of April 30. The speech of Governor Belcher of New. 
Jersey is dated April 25, 1754 ; and it gave rise to an acrimonious dispute between 
the executive and the assembly. The messages that passed between them were 
topied into the Boston papers. 

2 This device is appended to a spirited piece, dated Philadelphia, May 9, describ- 
ing the terror occasioned by the assaults of the French, copied into the " Boston 
Gazette" of May 21. 1754. The following is an extract: ''The confidence in the 
French in this und.ertalving seems well grounded on the present disunited state of the 
British colonies, and the extreme difficulty of bringing so many different govern 



■/ 



136 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

The Congress met on the 19th of June,^ 1754, at Albany, 
an old, compact Dutch city of about three hundred houses 
and twenty-six hundred inhabitants.^ It was enclosed by 
pickets on the side of the forest, was protected on the other 
side by the Hudson River, and had a fort built of' stone. 
Here the whites for a long time had lield treaties with the 
Indians. It was soon to be tlie base of important military 
operations. There w^as then a condition of actual war. 
France was moving troops into the Valley of the Missis- 
sippi ; and all the colonies were in the utmost confusion and 
hurry from the approaching danger.^ Some were sending out 
their youth to the frontier ; but others, under various pre- 
texts, were shamefully neglectful of their duty.^ In Maine, 
Governor Shirley, at tlie head of a thousand militia, was 
preparing to meet attacks in that quarter. In the basin of 
the Ohio, Washington, in the skirmish with the Frencli 



ments and assemblies to agree in any speedy and effectual measures for our common 
defence and security, while our enemies have the very great advantage of being 
under one direction, with one council and one purse." 

The press of this period contain spirited appeals. The ''Pennsylvania Gazette " 
of Sept. 5, 1774:, says that its "object is to present such considerations as tend to 
rouse you up from that lethargy which seems everywhei'e to prevail amongst us." 
'' The sword is coming, the alarm is sounded, and, if you will not hear, you must 
answer for the blood of all those who shall hereafter be slain through j-our neglect: 
you will have t> answer both for the temporal and spiritual ruin of your posterity." 
The " New- York Weekly Gazette " (September 23) had a " summary view " of the 
state of the Continent, with reference to the French. It says: " Within the legal 
and rightful dominions of our king are the forts and settlements which this pertid- 
ious and restless nation have erected, and are now strengthening themselves in the 
possession of, at Ohio, as it is commonly called. This is the finishing stroke of 
their ambitious and highly to be dreaded encroachments. This calls aloud upon the 
whole British continent of America, to rise as one man, to enter into a well-concerted, 
an united, an active, a vigorous and resolute plan, against these, our faithless, usurp 
ing, insolent enemies." 

1 Though the convention was called for the 14th, the members did not meet until 
the 19th. 

2 New-York Doc. Hist., i. G96. 

" London Magazine for August, 1754, 3G1. Letter, dated Williamsburgh, June 4. 

4 1 Mass. Hist. Coll., vii. 72. " Thej' contemned the power of Canada; confided 
in the number of their inhabitants; inattentive were they to the inconveniences of 
an endless frontier; and, in short, entirely unacquainted with the situation of the in- 
land country. The waters of the Ohio, before this period, were scarcely known, 
save to a few Indian traders; and the generality deemed those French settlements 
too remote to be the object of dread, and a matter of insignificant moment.' 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 137 

under Jumoiiville, had fired the shot which proved the sig- 
nal of the first war of revolution.^ 

The Congress, convened at the City Hall, consisted of five 
commissioners from Massachusetts, four from New Hamp- 
sliire, three from Connecticut, two from Rhode Island, four 
from Pennsylvania, two from Maryland, and the lieutenant- 
governor, with four of the council, of New York, — twenty. 
five in all. Among them were some of the most considerable 
men, both for abilities and fortunes, of North America.^ 
Thomas Hutchinson of Massachusetts had been in public life 
for eighteen years, had rendered valuable service, and had 
evinced such varied ability, that he was spoken of as the 
greatest and best man in America.^ Theodore Atkinson, 
the chief-justice of New Hampshire, was eminent as a jurist; 
and Meshech Weare, speaker of the assembly of this colony, 
was subsequently one of the substantial patriots of the Revo- 
lution, as was Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island, who signed 
the Declaration of Independence. Roger Wolcott, jr., was a 
judge of the Connecticut superior court. James Delancy, 
of great fortune and large ambition, the lieutenant-gover- 
nor of New York, was figuring conspicuously as a political 
leader. He was a champion of the prerogative. William 
Smith of the council, famed for classic lore and eminent as 
a lawyer, had been one of the counsel for Zenger, in the 
great trial involving the liberty of the press. William John- 
son, soon to be made a baronet, was born in Ireland. He 
had lived many years in the Valley of the Mohawk like a 

1 Bancroft, iv. 118. The " London Magazine" for August, 1754, has Washing- 
ton's letter to his brother of May 31, in which he says, " I heard the bullets whistle; 
and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound." 

2 1 Mass. Hist. Coll., vii. 77. The commissioners were, — from Massachusetts, 
Samuel Wellos, John Chandler, Thomas Hutchinson, Oliver Partridge, and John 
Worthington; from New Hampshire, Theodore Atkinson. Richard Wibird, Meshech 
Wearo, Henry Sherbiirn, jr. ; from Connecticut, William Pitkin, Roger Wolcott, jr., 
Elisha WfTttuiins^ Rhode Island, Stephen Hopkins, Martin Howard, jr. ; Pennsyl- 
vania, .lohn Penn, Richard Peters, Isaac Norris, Benjamin Franklin; Maryland, 
Benjamin Tnsker. Albert Barnes; New York, James Delancy, Joseph Murray, Wil- 
liam Johnson, John Chambers, William Smith. 

8 John Adams's Works, ii. 189. 



138 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

chief, talking eloquently to the Indians in their own lan- 
guage, a decided Mormon in his domestic relations, and 
wielding so great an influence, that it was said his words 
made the villages tremble. Benjamin Tasker of Maryland 
had a high legal reputation. The member who most nearly 
personified the American was Benjamin Franklin, like Hop- 
kins, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. His 
discoveries in science had won for him a wide and noble 
fame ; and the press in Europe and America were circulating 
tributes to his genius.^ He was one of the two postmaster- 
generals of the colonies. His unrivalled sagacity, practical 
good sense, largo experience, generous aims, and steady 
purpose to promote the good of mankind, shed lustre on the 
congress. This body was the most deserving of respect of 
any that had convened in America, whether considered in 
reference to the colonies represented, the character of the 
members, or the purposes for which it was called.^ It was 
compared to one of the ancient Greek conventions, held 
to support their expiring liberty against the power of the 
Persian Empire. Tlie speakers were not many ; but in the 
debates some spoke with singular energy and eloquence, 
and all were imbued with a patriotic spirit.^ 

Tlie representatives of six of the colonies brought with 
them commissions signed by their respective governors. 
Massachusetts authorized action to be taken in concert with 
all or with any of the British colonies, but required ad- 
herence to such instructions as the assembly from time to 
time should give. New Hampshire conferred power to act 
on all matters relating to the objects of the convention. 
Connecticut gave authority to take proper measures in pur- 
suance of instructions from the assembly. Rhode Island 



1 The prefMce to the "Gentleman's Magazine" for 1753 contains verses in which 
there is a reference to Franklin ; and the February number of 1754, of the same 
magazine, has a tribute addressed to him, signed C. W., Cooper River, South Caro- 
lina, Sept. 20, 1753. 

2 Hutchinson's Mass., iii. 21. 8 i Mass. Hist. Coll., vii. 77. 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 139 

authorized action with the other colonies necessary to carry 
out the designs of the crown as expressed in the circular 
of the Earl of Holdernesse. Pennsylvania conferred full 
power to treat with the Indians ; but its commission did 
not refer to the question of union ; and that of Maryland 
required its delegates to observe the propositions that might 
be submitted for a general scheme for concert of action, 
and to report on their character. 

The members do not appear to have chosen £i presiding 
officer. The official journal says, that a congress was held 
by the Honorable James Delancy, lieutenant-governor of 
New York. When he met with the members, he presided. 
On the third day of the meeting, Peter Wraxall, clerk of 
the city of Albany, was chosen secretary ; and the governor 
proposed, that, to avoid disputes about the precedency of 
the colonies, the commissioners should be named in the 
order of their situation from north to south. At the first 
meeting, the governor produced a letter from the Lords 
of Trade, defining the objects of the convention ; and the 
two sessions of that day were occupied mainly in consider- 
ing Indian affairs. 

The details relative to the treaty with the chiefs are quite 
voluminous. Messengers had been sent to their castles or 
villages, asking their attendance ; but they did not arrive 
until the last of the month. The delay was attributed by 
some to fear and by others to art. At length they came, 
though in fewer numbers than was expected, when Hen- 
dricks, a great Mohawk sachem, apologized for the delay. 
On the morning of the 29tli of June, twenty-four of the 
commissioners, among them Franklin, met about a hundred 
and fifty of the chiefs. The governor presided, having two 
of his council on each side near him, and the members 
ranged next to these councillors.^ The proceedings were 

i 1 Mass. Hist. Coll., vii. 76. This " Review of the Military Operations," &c., was 
written by an eye-witness, and probably by William Smith, and printed in a pam- 
phlet in London, in 1757. — Coll. New-York Hist. Soc, iii. 361. 



140 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

conducted with great solemnity. The governor read a long 
speech, and delivered presents, which were of vast value 
compared with former gifts, and which pleased the Indians. 
But they taunted the English for their defenceless condition. 
" Look at the French," Hendricks said. " They are men ; 
they are fortifying everywhere. But — we are ashamed to 
say it — you are all lilvc women." The conference was con- 
tinued several days, and witli a satisfactory result. At its 
close, Hendricks, in expressing the wish that the tree of 
friendship they had planted might grow to a great height, 
said, " I will just tell you what a people we were formerly. 
If any of our enemies arose against us, we had no occasion 
to lift up our wliole hand against them ; for our little finger 
was sufficient. And as we have now made so strong a con- 
federacy, if we are truly earnest therein, we may retrieve 
the ancient glory of the Five Nations." 

While the proceedings relative to the Indians were going 
on, the congress considered the other great object for which 
it was called. It first unanimously resolved, that a union 
of all the colonies was absolutely necessary for their general 
defence and security. It then appointed a committee to 
receive all the schemes that had been offered, digest them 
into one general plan, and report it to the Board. The 
delegates from each colony selected from their number a 
member of the committee. It consisted of Hutchinson, 
Atkinson, Pi,tkin, Hopkins, Franklin, Tasker, and Smith, — 
a rare combination of character, intellect, learning, and 
experience in public affairs. The two political schools were 
about equally represented in the committee. Hutchinson, 
soon to be a champion of an arbitrary ministry, and Frank- 
lin, soon to be a tribune of the people, were two of tlie 
strongest men of their respective parties. They brouglit to 
their work eminent ability. Both had large influence in 
tiieir local assemblies. They recognized the value of union. 
They saw that a thirst for liberty was the ruling passion of 
the age, and that a mighty empire was rising in America. 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 141 

In Hutchinson it was the vision of a clear intellect dis- 
trusting the capacity and intelligence of the people. In ' 
Franklin it was the insight of a philosoplier having faith I 
in human progress, and determined to labor for the liberties 
of his country. 

In the deliberations of the committee, it appeared that 
the plan which received the most favor was one prepared by 
Franklin, who gives this account of it : " In our way thither, 
I projected and drew a plan for the union of all the colo- 
nies under one government, so far as might be necessary 
for defence, and other important general purposes. As we 
passed through New York, I had there shown my project to 
Mr. James Alexander and Mr. Kennedy, two gentlemen of 
great knowledge in public affairs ; and, being fortified by 
their approbation, I ventured to lay it before the congress." ^ 
Franklin had long been identified with the local government 
of Pennsylvania. He had, however, given more attention 
to natural science than to general politics. His idea of 
having a legislature of only one branch, and his views as to 
the practicability of an American representation in parlia- 
ment, were not in accordance with those of his countrymen 
generally. His plan, and his argument for it,^ however, 
show that he grasped the idea of forming a self-sustaining 
general government, which, while recognizing the inviola- 
bility of the local governments, should act on the individual 
citizen. 

The committee, four days after its appointment, reported to 
the congress " short hints of a scheme" for a union, of which 
copies were taken by the members. There was a question 
whether an act of parliament was not necessary to establish 
sucli a union. It was held, that charters and commissions 
of the crown, under which the colonies exercised powers of 



1 Autobiography, Bigelow'a edition, 29^ Franklin says tliat the committee re- 
portod his plan with a few amendments. I have not met with this report, unless it 
be the paper entitled " Short Hints," in Sparks's " Works of Franklin," iii. 27. 

2 Sparks's Works of Franklin, iii. 61. 



142 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

government, gave no authority to form one constitution for 
the whole ; and though it might be said, that, if tlie king 
could grant powers of government to each colony separately, 
he could do the same to them collectively, yet it would 
be altering powers given by charter to create a new gov- 
ernment over the people for any purposes covered by the 
charter. It was said, that the power of parliament had not 
been called in question ; ^ and on the second of July the con- 
gress voted, that the Board proceed to form a union of the 
colonies, to be established by an act of parliament. Long 
debates followed on the hints that had been submitted. On 
the fourth of July, when all the members but the lieutenant- 
governor were present, the question was discussed in two 
sessions held in the morning and afternoon. The debate 
was continued from time to time until the ninth of July, 
when a plan was agreed upon. Franklin was then de- 
sired to make a draught of it. He did not attend the ses- 
sion the next day, — tlie journal of the Congress says, — 
being absent by appointment. He reported, on the tenth, a 
Plan of a Union in a new form. This was undoubtedly the 
form that was adopted. It was considered, paragraph by 
paragraph, during the morning session, when all the mem- 
bers were present, and the debate was resumed in the after- 
noon. 

The preamble of this plan states the purpose of making 
application for an act of parliament, by virtue of which one 
general government might be formed in America, including 
all the colonies, within and under which each colony might 
retain its constitution. 

Tlie local constitutions were recognized in several of the 
provisions. The representatives of the people of each colony, 
in their own assembly, were to choose, every three years, 
members to form a Grand Council ; the general govern- 
ment was prohibited from impressing men without the con- 
sent of the local legislature ; any colony, on an emergency, 

1 Hutchinson's Mass., iii. 22. 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY TEARS. 143 

might defend itself; and the particular military as well as 
civil establishments in each colony were to remain in their 
present state, " the general constitution notwithstanding ; " 
witli this proviso, however : " except in the particulars 
wherein a change might be directed " by the contemplated 
act of parliament. \/ 

The union element was embodied in a Grand Council, to 
meet once a year. It was to have the power to choose a 
speaker, and was not to be dissolved, prorogued, or con- 
tinued in session longer than six weeks, without its own con- 
sent, or the special command of the crown. It was to be 
empowered to make treaties with the Indians, regulate trade 
with them, buy lands of them for the crown, and aiithor- 
ize new settlements ; and for these purposes to make laws ; 
to levy duties, imposts, or taxes ; to nominate all civil offi- 
cers who were to act under the constitution, and to approve 
of all military officers ; to appoint a general treasurer, and a 
special treasurer in each government ; and to have a joint 
voice in the expenditure of the moneys raised ; to enlist 
and pay soldiers and build forts. The laws were not to be 
repugnant to those of England, but as near as possible to 
be agreeable to them ; and they were to be submitted to the 
king, and, if not disapproved within three years, to remain 
in force. ^ 

The executive power was to be vested in a president- 
general, appointed and supported by the crown. He was 
to nominate military officers ; commission all officers ; man- 
age, with the advice of the Grand Council, Indian affairs ; , 
have a negative on all the acts of the Grand Council ; and 
to carry their acts into execution. . 

This plan was strenuously opposed by the Connecticut • I 1 



1 Franklin (Sparks's Works, iii. 51), in his interesting commentary on his plan, 
says, that, in empowering "the president-general and grand council" to make laws 
for laying and collecting general duties and tazes, " it was not intended to interfere 
with the constitution and government of the particular colonies," which were to be 
" left to their own laws, and to lay, levy, and apply their own taxes as before." 



144 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

delegates,^ who urged, at length, that it would be impractica- 
ble for the president and council to defend and provide for 
a union so large as to extend from Nova Scotia to Georgia ; 
that it would be detrimental for this power to appoint 
'and commission all the military officers of so large a gov- 
ernment ; that the population of the country was very 
numerous, and was doubling every twenty-five years, and 
to unite this growing power under one head might in time 
be dangerous ; that the negative of the president might be 
ruinous ; and that the power of levying taxes was a " very 
extraordinary thing," and against the rights of Englishmen, 
which were highly prized by the people, who had a due 
sense of their dependence on the mother-country, and de- 
lighted in obedience to, and admired the protection and 
privileges of, the laws of England.^ The plan was also op- 
posed by Lieutenant-governor Delancy, who would have 
reserved to the colonial governors a negative on the election 
of representatives to the Grand Council.^ 

On the afternoon of the tenth of July, the congress voted 
that the commissioners should lay copies of this plan before 
their respective constituents for their consideration, and 
that the secretary should transmit a copy of it to each of the 
colonies which had not sent commissioners, with the view of 
obtaining such alterations as might be thouglit necessary ; * 
after which it was intended to transmit the plan to Eng- 
land to be perfected. On the eleventh of July the congress 



1 It is remarkable, that Franklin (Sparks's Works, i. 177), Hutchinson (Hist. 
Mass. iii. 23), members of the convention, and Thomas Pownall (Administration of 
the Colonies, ed. 1774), who was present, say that the plan was unanimously adopted. 
Smith, also a member (Hist. New York, ii. 182) says, that every member except 
Delancy consented to the plan. But the report of the (>)nnecticnt members of tlie 
House (1 Mass. Soc. Coll., vii. 207-21.3), expressly says, that the delegates of that 
colony insi.'sted " at the congress" on their objection^, which they thought were never 
answered or obviated, and that they never gave any consent. 

2 1 Mass. Hist. Coll., vii. 207-213. 

8 Smith (New York, ii. 183) says Delancy made no great oppositirn. — Bancrott, 
iv. 124. 

< Journal of Proceedings. 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 145 

adjourned.^ Only its general results were announced in 
the journals.^ 

The plan was then earnestly recommended to the people. 
A citation will give the spirit of the patriotic appeals. One 
writer in the press said, " I hope and pray the Almighty, 
that tlie British colonies on this continent may cease ira- 
politically and ungenerously to consider themselves as dis- 
tinct States, witli narrow, separate, and independent views ; 
. . . that they will unite like brother protestants and brotlier 
subjects, at least in this critical and important crisis, rouse / 
up the English lion in each other's breasts, . . . and thereby 

1 Sparks's Franklin, iii. 24. 

2 I h>ive confined the narrative in the text mainly to matters connected with my 
theme. Elaborate and interesting p ipers on the rights of England to the soil, the 
claims of France, and methods for the general defence, were submitted to the con- 
vention, which appear in the ''Journal of the Proceedings." This journal has been 
printed from copies taken to the several governments: in the " Pennsylvania Ar- 
chives; " in the " New-York Documents," edited by Callaghan and Broadhead; and, 
excepting the last day's proceedings, in the " .Massachusetts Historical Society's Col- 
lections," 3d series, vol. v. The Plan of Union is in Pownall's " Administration of 
the Colonies," ed. 1768, App. iv. In the "American Museum" for February, 1789, 
the writer of a communication dated " New York, Oct. 28, 1788," says that he was 
surprised that the Albany Plan "had lain dormant and unnoticed among all the 
publications on the subject of the new government." This number contains a p^rt 
of the plan, with accompanying papers, among which is a reprint of Franklin's y 
" Commentary." The April number contains the conclusion, with a note, dated, 
Philadelphia, April 9, 1789, evidently written or dictated by Franklin, containingS 
speculations on what might have taken place if this plan, or something like it, had/ 
not been rejected. Compare this with Sparks's Works of Franklin, i. 177, 178. \ 

Thomas Pownall, subsequently governor of Massachusetts, was present at thisJ 
congress. He submitted to it a paper on American affairs, which was criticised 
(1 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., vii. 87, 88) as loose and undigested, and containing 
sentiments unintelligible to a North-American understanding. It was printed in 
New York in February, 1756, and in the " Gentleman's Magazine " for May, 1756. 

The "Boston Gazette" of the 2.3d of July, 1754, has the following: "This day 
sev'nnight came to town the Hon. Thomas Hutchinson, Esq., judge of probate for 
this county, and one of the commissioners at the late convention at Albany. We 
are informed: That the Indians had all left that city in a good temper; but that a 
much smaller number attended the Interview than heretofore has been usual : 
That the commissioners from the several governments were unanimously of opinion 
that a union of the colonies was absolutelj' necessary in order to defeat the schemes 
of the French : That a representation of the state of the British interest on this con- 
tinent as it stands related to the French and Indians has been drawn up and a)) 
proved of: and that a plan of union has likewise been projected, and will, by th' 
said commissioners, be laid before their respective constituents All the commis- 
sioners left Albany on the 12th instant." 

10 



146 THE RTSE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

1 

secure to themselves and their posterity to the end of time 
the inestimable blessings of civil and religious liberty, and 
the uninterrupted possession and settlement of a great coun- 
try, rich in all tlie fountains of human felicity. To obtain 
this happy establishment, without which, I fear, it never 
will be obtained, may the God of heaven grant success to 
the plan for a union of the British colonies on the con- 
tinent of America! "^ 

The policy of union was earnestly recommended to the 
assemblies by the governors. Dobbs of North Carolina, for 
instance, portrayed with spirit the progress of the French ; 
urged that that power would never have adopted its grand 
and romantic scheme for dominion if it had not been pre- 
possessed with the idea that the British colonies were guided 
by selfish and partial views, were unwilling or incapable of 
uniting their force, and were like a rope of sand ; and lie 
said, " Let us show that we are true sons of Britons, whose 
ancestors have been famed for defending their valuable 
religion and liberties."^ The Albany Plan was reported to 
the Massachusetts assembly by their delegation to the con- 
gress ; yet Shirley, impatient of delay, in a message urged 
action on it, and in private letters strongly advocated the 
promotion of a union to be established by an act of parlia- 
ment.2 

These appeals failed to create a public opinion in favor of 
the plan. The Connecticut assembly resolved that it tended 
to subvert their liberties, took measures to watch the action 



1 Boston Gazette, Oct. 1, 1754. 

2 Dobbs's address of Dec. 12, 1754, was printed in tlie " Gentleman's Magazine " 
for July, 1755, in which he urged that colony to enter " into a plan of union with 

/ all the British colonies for their mutual future defence." 

/ 8 Shirley says, in a letter dated Oct. 21, 1754, to Governor Morris, the newly ap- 
pointed governor of Pennsylvania, " The best advice I can give you is to lose no 
tibie for promoting the plan of a union of the colonies for their mutual defence, to be 
concerted at home, and established by act of parliament as soon as possible. ... I 
am labonng this point Mis virihus." Siiirley said of the Albany Plan, Dec. 24, 
1764, "It doth not appear well calculated to strengthen the dependency of the colo- 
nies upon the crown." 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 147 

of the Other governments, and strongly opposed its adop- 
tion.i The New Jersey assembly declared, that it contained 
things which would affect its constitution in its very vitals, 
and believed and hoped it would never be countenanced by a 
British legislature.^ The Pennsylvania assembly negatived 
it without a discussion. The Massachusetts assembly gave 
to it the consideration which the important subject required, 
but, after long debates, rejected it, and also rejected another 
plan, submitted by a committee.^ Iu_brief, the plan was 
negatived by every assembly before which it was brought,* 
and was denounced in the forum of the people.* 

The plan was transmitted, by Lieut.-Gov. Delancy, to the 
Lords of Trade, who laid it before the king with the simple 

1 Trumbull's Hist. Conn., ii. 357. The assembly were desirous " that the govern- 
ment should be lessened, and divided into two districts." 

2 The Address of the House, in Boston Gazette, Nov. 5, 1754. The House 
says, " We can truly say, we want not arguments to convince us of the absolute 
necessity of the strictest union among all his majesty's provinces and colonies for 
the preservation of the whole, and on our part have endeavored to cultivate such a 
union, by contributing our endeavors in the best manner the circumstances of this 
colony will admit." 

8 The proceedings of the Massachusetts assembly on the question of a union 
of the colonies are interesting. It would, however, require too much space to rtlate 
them in full. The subject was referred, on the 22d of October, 1754, to a large com^ 
mittee, who reported a new plan for a union, embracing only a part of the colonies. 
On the 13th of December, the question was a«signed for nine o'clock on the folbwing 
morning, and the members were enjoined to give their attendance. On that daj* 
(Dec. 14), " after a large debate, the question was put. Whether the House accept of ' 
the General Plan of Union iis reported by the commissioners convened at Alb.iny in 
June last? It wns passed in the negitive Sent up for concuirence. The question 
was then put. Whether the House accept of the Partial Plan of Union reported by 
the last committee of both Houses nppoinfed on the union ? It passed in the negative. 
Sent up for concurrence." After this rejection of the Partial Plan and the Albany 
Plan, the House, by a vote of forty-one to thirty-seven, resolved that there ought to 
be a " general union of his majesty's colonies, except those of Nova Scotia and 
Georgia." A plan for such a union was reported by a committee. It is in Hutchin-, 
son's handwriting. He does not allude to it in his history; nor have I met with \ 
any reference to it. It differs materially in some of its provisions from the Albany 
Plan. It provided, that the Grand Council, in the choice of their speaker, should not 
be subject to the negative of the president. After debating this plan, the House 
voted, forty-eight against thirty-one, that the further consideration of it should be 
suspended until the members could have an opportunity to consult their constituents. 
This plan will be found in the Appendix. 

_, * Hutchinson, iii. 23. It was denounced at a large town-meeting in Boston 
(1 Mass. Coll., iv. 85) as detrimental to the liberties »f the people. 



148 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

remark, that the scheme was complete in itself.^ No action 
was taken on it by the Privy Council. The Lords of Trade 
were in favor of a plan of union more consonant with Eng- 
lish ideas ; ^ they were also occupied with the questions of 
altering the local governments, carrying into effect the acts 
relating to trade, and a scheme for internal taxation ; and 
they gave little attention to the Albany Plan. 

This plan, rejected in America because it had too much 
of the prerogative and in England because it was too demo- 
cratic, elicited discussion in the assemblies on the great 
question of union, and shows the progress of the American 
mind in political science. It had to solve the difficult 
problem of framing a general government adequate to pro- 
vide for the common welfare, and yet keeping inviolate the 
principle of local self-government. The New-England con- 
federacy secured effectually to each colony its rights ; biit 
its board of commissioners to act for the whole was a crude 
embodiment of the union element. The schemes subse- 
quently proposed in books and letters, contemplated a grand 
council, or a congress, to devise measures for the general 
welfare ; but left their execution either to the local govern- 
ments, or, as was the ideal of the party of the prerogative, 
contemplated a consolidation of the popular functions into 
a central power, foreign to the genius of the people. |The Al- 
bany Plan was designed to establish for all America one gov- 
ernment, based on the consent of the governed, and limited to 
general purposes, while it left to the local governments their 
separate functions. It designed to confer on the representa- 
tives of the people the power of making laws acting directly 

1 The letter of the Lords of Trade, dated Oct. 29, 1754, says, " The commis- 
sioners having agreed upon a Plan of Union, wliich, as far as their sense and 
opinion of it goes, is complete in itself, we shall not presume to make any observa- 
tions upon it, but transmit it simply for your majesty's consideration." — New- York 
Col , vi. 920. 

2 The Lords were directed (June 14, 1754) by the king to prepare a plan for 
general concert by the colonies. On the 5th of July, tlie Lords wrote to Delancy, that 
it was the opinion and language of almost every colony that a general union of 
strength and interest had become absolutely necessary. — New-York ^ol., vi. 848. 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 149 



on individuals, and appointing officers to execute them, and 
yet not to interfere with the execution of the laws operating 
on the same individuals by the local officers. The authors 
of this plan intended to erect a public authority as obliga- 
tory in its sphere as the local governments were in their 
spheres. This would have been not a mere league, but a 
seli^ustaining government. The credit of this conception 
is_due to the illustrious Franklin. It was. original and 
American.. It was_ co,mprel^en sive and grand. It is not 
strange that the form devised to carry it out should have 
been imperfect. The time had not ripened, the way had 
not been opened, for such a stride in political science as a 
worthy embodiment of this ideal would have been. It re- 
quired the discipline and the experience of the succeeding 
thirty years, the growth of a public opinion for a union, 
the rise of a sentiment of nationality, the possession of 
sovereignty, long training of the general mind in politics, 
and the wisdom of a cluster of the peers of Franklin in in- 
tellect, before the conception could be embodied in a worthy 
form. Divine Providence permitted Franklin to share in 
this experience, to aid in forming the more perfect Union 
of the Constitution, and to see his countrymen establish it 
as the law of the land.^ \ 

1 The paper entitled " Reasons and Motives on which the Plan of Union was 
formed," in Sparks's edition of Franklin's Works (iii. 32), was printed in 1789, 
in the "American Museum," vol. v., and i\t its close the following note, evidently by 
Franklin. It was not copied b^' Sparks: — 

On reflection, it now seems probable, that, if the foregoing plan, or something like it, had 
been adopted and carried into execution, the subsequent separation of the colonies fmm the 
mother-country might not so soon have happened, nor the mischiefs suffered on both sides 
liaTe occurred, perhaps, during another century. For the colonies, if so united, would have 
really been, as they then thought themselves, sufficient to their own defence ; and. being 
trusted with it. as by the plan, an array from Britain, for that purpose, would have been un- 
necessjiry. The pretences for framing the Stamp Act would then not have e.xisted, nor the 
other projects for drawing a revenue from America to lirituin by acts of pailiaraent, which 
were the cause of the breach, and attended with such terrible expense of blood and treasure; 
so that the different parts of the empire might still have remained in peace and union. But 
the fate of this plan was singular. After many days' thorough discussion of all its parts in 
congress, it was unanimously agreed to, and copies ordered to be sent to the assembly of each 
province for concun-ence, and one to the ministry in England for the approbation of the 
crown. The crown disapproved it, as having too much weight in the democratic part of the 
constitution, and every assembly as having allowed too much to prerogative ; so it was totaUy 
rejected. 

Philadelphia. Anril 9th. 1789. 



n: 



150 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

The plan contained things which were hateful to the colo- 
nists. The reasoning against it, liowever, of the Connecti- 
cut legislators shows the strengtli of tlieir prejudices and tlie 
narrowness of their views rather than defects in the plan. 
The action of the assemblies ought to be regarded in con- 
nection with the prior aggressions on their rights, and with 
the claims set up for prerogative or for parliament as to 
their internal affairs, which kept them in a state of torment. 
I The plan reserved to the colonies their local constitu- 
tions, except in the particulars in wliich a change miglit be 
made in an act of parliament authorizing the formation of 
the union. This important exception was not in Franklin's 
original plan ; he does not comment on it in his interesting 
paper on the reasons and motives for each article ; and no 
one, at a subsequent period, more strenuously opposed sub- 
mitting the local constitutions to the decisions of parliament 
than he. The assemblies obeyed a truly American instinct, 
in declining to subject their free municipal life — their re- 
publican customs — to the determination of a body in wliich 
their constituents were not represented. Indeed, the people 
in the late civil war were not truer to an imperative public 
duty in clinging to the national life, after the battle of Bull 
Run, than the colonies were in rejecting the manner of 
obtaining union recommended by the Albany Congress.-^ 

Other plans of union at that time were brought forward, 
and congresses of governors to consult on tlie general de- 
fence continued to be held. In the October following the 
Albany Congress, Shirley communicated to Franklin, at 
Boston, the designs of the ministry in relation to union and 
taxation, which were so totally opposed to his own views as 
to elicit in reply the well-linovvn remarkable letters, wliich 
were so sagacious that they embodied the gist of the xVmeri- 



1 Tlie tenacity with which th'e cohinies hekl on to what thuy conceived to be their 
riglits and liberties, ought to be viewed in connection with English politics. Smith, 
in his "Local Self-government" (192 to 210), shows how, from the Revolution of 
1688, there w;is constant violation of this principle. 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 151 

can argument against the arbitrary policy that was in contem- 
plation by the Lords of Trade. Tiie scheme of union urged 
by Halifax — despotic, complicated, and impracticable — 
embraced a permanent revenue ; ^ one by Golden contained 
provisions for an hereditary council of landholders, in imi- 
tation of the House of Lords ;^ one by Johnson, a church- 
man, contemplated a change in the charter governments, 
uniformity in all the colonies, and this as near as possible 
like the government of England, though he conceded that 
tlie Episcopal Church ought to have no superiority over 
other denominations.^ The union question was discussed 
in pamphlets. One writer proposed to form three unions, — 
a northern, a middle, and a southern, — on the ground that 
really there were three distinct countries.^ These plans, if 
of little political significance, show that attention continued 
to be given to the subject. It was a general feeling that the 
colonies ought to be united ; but tliere was no public opinion 
in favor of any of the schemes that had been proposed. 
Nor was there among them a fraternal sentiment, on which 
to base a union. 

It had long been thought that it would be impracticable 
to unite the colonies into one political power. Their rival- 
ries in trade and disputes about boundaries were severe. 
There was then war going on between Carolina and Georgia 
concerning the navigation of the Savannah.^ These an- 
tagonisms were early seen. Sir William Keitli hold it to 
be morally impossible that any dangerous union could be 
formed among them.*' Jeremiah Dumraer said that tiiey 
were so distinct from one another in tlieir forms of govern- 
ment, their religion, emulations of trade, and affections, that 

1 Bancroft, iv. 166. 2 ibid., iv. 272. 

8 In a paper dated King's College, New York, Jan. 30, 1760, and f ent to Pitt, 
Halifax, and the Archbishop of Canterbury. — New- York Col., vii. 438. 

4 Contest in America, 1757, 40. 

6 Gentleman's Magazine, 1756, 20. The people of Georgia had seized several 
vessels belonging to Carolina, and the people of the latter had armed their vessels. 

* Memorial, 1720: " Everj' advantage that is lost or neglected by one colony is 
immediately picked up by another." Keith, in this paper, suggested a stamp tax. 



152 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

they never could be supposed to unite.^ Franklin ascribed 
the disunion feeling to their jealousy of each other, which, 
he said, was so great as to prevent union when the enemy 
was burning their villages and murdering their people. 
Burnaby wrote that fire and water were not more hetero- 
geneous than the diiferent colonies, and that union seemed 
almost impossible.^ The " London Chronicle," in reply to 
the remark that the colonies could not be prevented from 
rising to independence and empire, urged that they liad 
little intercourse with and less friendship for one another ; 
that their hereditary rivalries and dislikes would prevent a 
general combination for revolt, while any partial endeavor 
would be sure to prove unsuccessful ; and that while there 
were British governors, civil officers, a naval and military 
force among them, there could be no reasonable apprehen- 
sion of a revolt, were the colonies better peopled than they 
could possibly be for five hundred years.^ This line of cita- 
tion might easily be extended. It would only be cumu- 
lative testimony, showing that the diversity which was 
paramount was looked upon as permanent. 

Such was tbe question of union wben the intelligence 
went through the colonies of the surrender of Canada to 
the British arms. It was heralded as one of tbe grandest 
events known in English annals, and its magnitude was not 
overrated. The colonists, however, were naturally occupied 
with its bearing on themselves. A burden was lifted from 
their hearts. A fountain of miseiy was sealed up for 
ever. Henceforth but trembling hands could wield against 
them the tomahawk. Henceforth their race was to control 

1 A Defence of the New-England Charters, 1721, 73. 

2 Travels in 1759-60, 159. " Nothing can exceed the jealousy and emulation 
wliich the^- possess in regard to each otlier. The inhabitants of Pennsylvania and 
New York have an inexhaustible source of aniniositv in their jealousy for tlie trade 
of the Jerseys. Massachusetts Bay and Rhode Island are not less interested in that of 
Connecticut. . . . Were they left to themselves, there would soon be a civil war 
from one end of the continent to the other." — 160. 

8 London Chronicle, May 30, 1760. This piece, signed •' Simpliv.ius," was copied 
into the American newspapers. 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 153 

America. Tliey tlion had visions of future prosperity, 
peace, and security, — a higher sense of tlie grandeur of 
the colonies. The towns were brilliant with illuminations. 
The press was laden with exultation. The pulpit was fer-- 
vent with gratitude. The assemblies were extravagant with 
expressions of loyalty.^ The general joy was irrepressible.' 
The liberty men vied with the party of the prerogative in 
pa3ans to the British Constitution and flag. This enthu- 
siasm sustains a remark of Franklin, tliat the colonists 
loved the nation more than they loved each other. The 
royal officials, however, represented that the profession of 
devotion to the crown was sheer hypocrisy; that the colonies 
intended to cast oiF their dependence on the mother-country. 
This was said throughout the whole period reviewed in this 
chapter. The charge was repelled by the colonists as an im- 
putation on their honor. Dummer, hearing it in the mouths 
of people of all conditions and qualities in London, con- 
fronted it by saying, " It would not be more absurd to place 
two of his majesty's beef-eaters to watch an infant in the 
cradle, that it do not rise to cut its father's throat, than to 
guard these weak infant colonies to prevent their shaking 
off the British yoke."^ Franklin assured Pratt that no such 
idea as casting off their dependence was entertained by the 



1 The Massachusetts Assembly, August, 1760, in dwelling on the " inexpressible 
joy of the present times," said of the British Constitution, •' Now this glorious con- 
stitution exceeds itself; it raises new ideas for which no language has provided 
words, because never known before. Contradictions are become almost consistent, 
clamorous faction is silent, morose envy good-natured, by the divine blessing on 
the councils and arms of our dread sovereign in every quarter of the world. He is 
become the scourge of tyrants, the hopes of the oppressed; yet in the midst of vic- 
tories prophesying peace." 

2 Defence of the New-England Charters, 72. Hutchinson (Hist. Mass., 3d ed., 
ii. 319) says this remark was in a brief used before the council. The idea that the 
colonies aimed at independence was alluded to in parliament, in the debates on 
the Sugar Bill. A petition from Rhode I-land alleged that duties would be against 
their charter. Sir William Yonge, in 1733, said, " This, I must say, is something 
verj' extraordinary, and, in mj' opinion, looks mighty like aiming at an independ- 
ency, and disclaiming the authority and jurisdiction of this House." — Cobbet's Par- 
liamentary History, viii 1261, where it is printed "very unhke;" but the speech is 
in "Massachusetts Gazette," Feb. 14, 1765. 



154 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

Americans.^ Still the allegation was deliberately made by 
Chalmers, that, from the epoch of the Revolution and 
throughout every reign, it was the settled policy of the 
colonies to acquire independence ; and this has been repeated 
by a recent British write-r. Neither supports the statement 
by proofs. It may be confidently affirmed, that no citations 
from private letters, no consultations for such an object by 
any political leaders, no resolves of any public body, no act 
of any colonial assembly, can be adduced to sustain such a 
charge. The only evidence of any such design is an im- 
pression made on the minds of royal officials by the zealous 
assertion on the part of the colonists of what they regarded 
as their rights ; and this is too vague for history.^ 

While there was neither an aim nor even a desire for 



1 Gordon (i. 136) saj'S this assurance was made before 17C0. Franklin arrived in 
London, July 27, 1757. 

2 The statement of Chalmers (Opinions of Eminent Lawyers, Preface) is, "that 
there lay among documents in the Board of Trade and Paper Office the most satis- 
factory proofs from the epoch of the Revolution of 16S8, throughout every reign and 
during every administration, of the settled purpose of the colonies to acquire direct 
independence." This subject was examined by Sparks, in No. X. of the Appen- 
dix of Vol. II. of the ''Writings of Washington" (1834). It is referred to in the 
preface to the American edition of Chalmers's " Revolt of the Colonies," printed in 
1845, where it is said that the proofs consisted of the complaints of the royal gov- 
ernors. The charge is repeated by Viscount Bury in 1865. He says, "A careful 
examination of the history of the colonies will show, that they, with few exceptions, 
formed, soon after this time (accession of William III.), the resolution of becoming 
independent of the mother-country." — Exodus of the Western Nations, vol. i. 395. 
And he states (p. 412), " 'i he desire of the colonies for independence e.xisted from their 
very foundation." He adduces no proofs to sustain this statement. Against the 
opinion of Chalmers and Bury may be set the remark of Hutchinson (Hist. Mass., 
iii. 69), " An empire, separate or distinct from Britain, no man then (1758) alive ex- 
pected or desired to sec." 

The idea that the colonies would rise into independence and empire was common 
at the period of 1760. It was met in a candid manner by the British pre.<s. A com- 
munication is copied into the " Boston News Letter" of Sept. 17, 1761, from a Lon- 
don journal. The writer says, " I know it has long been a boggle to some, that our 
colonies, finding no enemies on their backs, would set up for themselves . . . how 
weakly founded I appeal to common sense. If we have a mind to yoke them, make 
slaves of them, I grant it such aids are necessary for the purpose; but use them as 
fellow Britons, and they cannot, will not, refuse to acquiesce in what is just and right. 
I def}- the most cunning among us to prove that they have ever oflered to resist where 
they have not had just cause, and which on the same occasion would not have had 
the same effect on the people of England." 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 155 

independence on the part of the colonists, yet the increase 
of popuhition and wealth, the working of ideas, the quiet 
unfolding of Providence, elicited much reasoning and specu- 
lation on tlie tendency of events. This unwonted spectacle 
of the progress of a free people attracted more and more 
the attention of men of thought, and elicited a line of specu- 
lation respecting the future of America. Berkeley, in a pro- 
phetic strain, sung of another golden age which should 
produce subjects worthy of fame : — 

''Westward the course of empire takes its way, 
The four first acts already p ist, 
A fifth shall close the drama with the day; 
Time's noblest otFspring is the last." i 

Dummer heard great men say that the colonists, in the 
course of some years, if not curbed in time, would declare 
themselves a free State.^ Kalm was told by Americans and 
by Englislimen, that in thirty or fifty years the colonies would 
be able to form a State by themselves entirely independent.^ 
Turgot said, in a public discourse, that, when America was 
able to take care of itself, it would do what Carthage did.* 
John Adams mused on what would follow the expulsion of 
the turbulent Gallics, and saw a great seat of empire here 
that would become more populous than England.'^ Weare 
judged that the colonies, ripened by a very few more years 
must, agreeably to Nature's ordinary laws, drop off from 
that stock whence they originally sprung.^ Franklin pre- 
dicted that, in less than a century, the Mississippi Valley 
would become a populous and powerful dominion." Lude- 
man averred that the planets were the silent patrons of 
lovely America, and that her independence would be a 
steady counterbalance to the fierce commotions of the old 

1 Bishop Berkeley's well-known verses were written about 1726. 

2 Defence of New-England Charters, 72. 

8 Kahn's Travels in North America, i. 264, printed in 1748. 
* 1750. Bancroft, iv. 66. 5 1755. Works, i. 23. 

6 Before 1759. Mass. Hist. Coll., i. 76. 
' 1756. Sparks's Works of Franklin, iii. 70. 



156 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

world.^ It was a tradition that the Pilgrims who founded 
Plymouth inscribed on a rock the couplet, — 

" The eastern nations sink, their glory ends, 
And empire rises where the sun descends." 2 

An Italian poet, inspired by the presence of Benjamin West, 
sung that the spirit of venerable Rome, immortal and unde- 
cayed, was spreading towards the new world.^ Burnaby 
relates that an idea had entered into the minds of the gen- 
erality of mankind, that empire was travelling westward."* 
The language of the press was often elevating and prophetic 
as it portrayed what a great country, rich in all the foun- 
tains of human felicity, would be with union and a free 
constitution.^ 

America, before which a grand future was opening, was 
delineated as a tract having sixteen hundred miles of 
sea-coast, producing all the conveniences and necessaries 
of life, and surpassed in population in Europe by only 
three powers, — the German Empire, France, and England. 
America, it was said, because of her trade and the great 
quantity of manufactures consumed in it, had become the 
fountain of the riches of the mother -country. It was 
pictured as having hundreds of thriving towns, of which 
Boston was as large and better built than Bristol, or, in- 
deed, any city in England except London ; New York had 
abundant markets, good wharves, a large and growing 
commerce ; five thousand houses of brick and atone, and a 
town house very little inferior to Guild-Hall ; Pliiladelphia 
was as fine a city of its size as any on the globe, had a 
market-place equal to any in Europe, and an Academy in 
which the youth had made surprising progress ; Charles- 
ton, with a genteel and a refined society, was as large as 
Gloucester.^ The population of a million and a half was 

1 1757. Fanner and Moore's Collections, i. 127. 

2 John Adams's Works, ix. 599. 8 Gait's Life of West, i. 117. 
i Travels, 155. ^ See above, p. 14G. 

6 Tliese statciirients may be seen in an elaborate paper describing the colonies in 
the" Gentleman's Magazine" of 1755. 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND UNION FOR SEVENTY YEARS. 157 

doubling in twenty-five, some said, twenty years. In verses 
referring to the contributions of the learned from all climes 
to the cause of science, it was written, — 

" mild America prevails ; 



The mnid new paths in scieDce tries, 
New gifts her daring toil eupplieij; 
She gordian knots of art unbinds; 
The Tliunder's secret source she finds; 
With rival power her lightnings fly, 
Her skill disarms the frowning sky; 
For this the minted gold she claims. 
Ordained the meed of generous aims." l 

While America had thus won laurels in the field of 
science, it was said of her, that she had created an asylum 
for liberty. This was a passion with the race who had sub- 
dued the wilderness. It was the spring of their fidelity, 
intelligence, and zeal. A love of it was continually ex- 
pressed in their utterances. " Liberty," are Franklin's 
words,^ " thrives best in the woods. America best culti- 
vates what Germany brought forth." A paper ,'^ analyzing 
free principles and enjoining fidelity to tliem, circulated in 
the journals, closing with Milton's words : — 

" This is true liberty, when free-born men. 
Having to advise the public, may speak free, 
Which he who can and will, deserves high praise ; 
Who neither can nor will may hold his peace: 
What can be juster in a State than this"? " 

1 Gentleman's Magazine, Preface, 1753. It has this note : " Benjamin Franklin, 
Esq., of Philadelphia, obtained the Royal Society's medal for his amazing discov- 
eries in electricity." 

2 In 1759. Sparks's Works, iii. 114. * Independent Advertiser, 1749. 



CHAPTER V. 

How THE ASSERTION BY PARLIAMENT OF A RIGHT TO TAX THE COLO- 
NIES BY THE Stamp Act evoked a Sentiment of Union and 
OCCASIONED a General Congress. 

1760 TO 1766. 

The rejection of the Albany Plan proposing a general gov- 
ernment for all America was not caused by a low estimate 
of the value of union ; but was occasioned by a state of 
things which precluded its adoption, or even tlie formation 
of a public opinion in its favor. The subject was soon over- 
laid by events of such magnitude as to create an epoch in 
history. At that period, the ministry of George III. decided 
on a policy with regard to America more in harmony with 
English ideas and objects than with wisdom and justice. 
This policy, so far as it was developed in the Stamp Act, 
was an assertion by parliament of the right to tax the colo- 
nies by a body in which they were not represented ; and the 
attempt to execute this act evoked out of the prevalent 
diversity a sentiment of union, and called forth a congress 
for a redress of grievances. 
"^ The congress was held during the period of the Ameri- 
can Revolution. This was a grand historic drama, in which 
George III. spoke the prologue, when he announced the 
purpose of taxing America ; and Washington gave the 
epilogue, when he took the oath as the chief-magistrate of a 
free people. The movement, viewed in its completeness, 
may be said to have been a single step forward, which it 
required thirty years to take, and in wliich the British sub- 
jects of thirteen colonies, formed into communities under 
authority derived from the crown, advanced to the position 



THE STAMP ACT AND A SENTIMENT OF UNION. 159 

of citizens of tliirteeii independent States, organized on the 
basis of the sovereignty of the people, and united into a 
nation under a republican form of government. The unin- 
terrupted display of political wisdom in the progress of this 
work, its achievement under the banner of law and justice,^ 
the crowning triumph of the Federal Constitution with the 
power of self-preservation, elicited from Lord Brougham 
the judgment that this revolution is the most important 
political event in the history of our species.* It was a 
growth. It shows the process of evolution. Washington, 
a type of the wonderful public virtue of his time, recog- 
nized tlie nature of this growth, as is evident from these 
memorable words in his inaugural address ; " No people 
can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand 
which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of 
the United States. Every step by which they have advanced 
to the character of an independent nation seems to have 
been distinguished by some token of providential agency." 
The thirteen colonies, at the commencement of the Revo- 
lution, according to the rate of their increase, contained a 
population of about two millions. They were distinct com- 
munities. It is no more than simple justice to the founders 
of the republic to keep in mind, that these communities, 
each having a local life peculiar in some respects to itself, 
presented, not merely the aspect of diversity and a want of 
fraternity, but often that of antagonism to each other.^ 

1 Guizot. The Causes of the Success of the English Revolution, 1640-1688, 
130. 

2 Lord Brougham, in his " Political Philosophy " (vol. iii 329), says of the colo- 
nies, " After a series of extraordinary successes, . . . and an uninterrupted display 
of political wisdom as well as finnness and moderation, they finally threw off the 
yoke of the mother-country, . . . winning for themselves a new constitution upon 
the Federal plan, and of the republican form. This is perhaps the most important 
event in the history of our species." 

3 Lord Mahon (Hist. England, v. 77) has a candid strain of remark on this point 
of diversity, as he mentions the rivalries and the difficulty of concert and union. 
He says, " It is a difficult)' which should ever be borne in mind by every candid his- 
torian of the revolutionary war, as tending to enhance the success of the Americana 
when they succeeded, and to excuse in some degree their failure when they failed." 



V 



160 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Whatever Americanism there was did not appear in the 
form of unionism, so long as the sentiment of country or of 
nationality centred in the British Empire. The tradition- 
ary affection for England found expression wlien the Peace 
of Paris was announced. By that peace, England retained 
half a continent as the monument of her victories.^ She 
was exalted high among the nations. Her power and em- 
pire seemed above all ancient and above all modern fame.^ 
" We in America," James Otis exclaimed, " liave abundant 
reason to rejoice. The heathen are driven out, and the 
Canadians conquered. The British dominion now extends 
from sea to sea, and from the great rivers to the end 
of the earth. Liberty and knowledge, civil and religious, 
will be co-extended, improved, and preserved to the latest 
posterity." He reiterated the eulogy of the colonial age 
on the British Constitution ; he claimed that every British 
subject in America was entitled to the essential privileges 
of Britons ; he extolled the union between Great Britain 
and her plantations ; and he said, " What God in his provi- 
dence has united, let no man dare attempt to pull asunder."^ 
This undoubtedly expressed the feeling of Americans. 
The idea that the people of England and the colonies were 
fellow-subjects, co-equals in political rights under the Brit- 
ish Constitution, was common in America. It pervades the 
utterances of the patriots. Jefferson embodied the senti- 
ment as he wrote the declaration tliat announced tlie sepa- 
ration of the people of the colonies from- the people of 
England : " We might liave been a free and a great people 
together." ^ 

Such is a glance at America when George HI. began his 
memorable reign. It is common for British writers to lay 
at the door of the king and his advisers the responsibility 

1 Bancroft, iv. 78. 2 Smyth's Lectures on Moilern History, ii. 348. 

8 "Post Boy," March 21, 1763. — Otis delivered this speech on being chosen 
moderator of the first town-meeting held in Boston after the intelligence of the 
Treaty of 1763 was receivfd. 

* Original Draft of the Declaration of Independence. 



THE STAMP ACT AND A SENTIMENT OF UNION. 161 

for what occurred. He is characterized as having been 
amiable in private life, but with a narrow understanding 
which culture had not enlarged, and au obstinate disposi- 
tion which no education could have humanized ; and it is 
said, that the instant his prerogative was concerned, or his 
will was thwarted, the most unbending pride and calculating 
coldness took possession of his breast, and swayed it by 
turns.^ Lord Bute, also, his early adviser, is described as 
of a cold heart, and haughty ways, and thoroughly tory in 
his aflfinities. But however just may be the delineations 
of these actors and of others, the springs of the great events 
that soon occurred lay deeper than personal character. 
They grew out of the ideas of the age. Their roots were in 
the condition of society. The king was an exponent of the 
feudalism that still lingered, and which was absolutely 
irreconcilable with institutions in America that tended more 
and more to a realization of freedom and equality. 

The acquisition of Canada, of the valley of the Mississippi, 
and of Florida, vastly increased the consequence of America: 
it became the great subject for consideration, and seemed 
to require a new policy. The men in power regarded Eng- 
land as the head and heart of the whole empire, as omnipo- 
tent in the matter of government ; and they aimed to make 
every other part of the empire " the mere instrument or 
conduit of conveying nourishment and vigor" to the head.^ 
A policy based substantially on this idea had long been 
urged by the Lords of Trade. It amounted to the construc- 
tion of a new colonial map. It embraced an alteration of 
territorial boundaries, a remodelling of the local constitu- 
tions, an abridgment of popular power, and an introduction 
of the aristocratic or hereditary element. It contemplated, 
in fact, the moulding of America into uniformity with Eng- 
land. It included an execution of the Navigation Act, 
which had never been enforced, of laws of trade which had 

1 Brougham's Statesmen of the Times of George II., 1, 2. 

2 Extra-official State Papers, 32, written b)' WiHiam Knox. 

11 



162 THE RISE OF THE EEPUBLIC. 

remained dead letters on the statute-book, the collection of 
a revenue, and the establishment of a standing army. The 
ministry of the Earl of Bute, based on prerogative and 
power, decided in favor of this policy, and successive ad- 
ministrations endeavored to carry it out in part or in the 
whole. ^ 

The measures embodying this scheme were not adopted at 
once. Its earliest manifestation was in the shape of in- 
structions to the several officers, directing them to execute 
the acts of trade ; and the application of one of them to 
the superior court of Massachusetts for " a writ of assist- 
ance," or an authority to search any house for merchandise 
liable to duty, occasioned the famous argument of James 
Otis against granting the writ. The orders issued after the 
Peace of Paris, directing an execution of the Sugar Act, 
the Navigation Act, and the arbitrary laws of trade created 
great alarm in the colonies.^ This was protested against 
by the community generally. It was suggested that the 
merchants in the colonies should hold meetings, choose 
committees to memorialize the general assemblies to act on 
the subject of the Sugar Act, and tliat these committees 
should open a correspondence with each other, and thus 
endeavor " to promote a union or a coalition of all their 



1 Bancroft has traced the origin of this policy with great thoroughness, espe- 
cially in chapters v., vii., and ix. of vol. v. See the valuable note, p. 83, on the 
alterations proposed in the local governments. 

2 This subject has been so often presented, that it would be following a beaten 
track to relate the details of its adoption. I subjoin a few dates and facts. The card 
of Barrons, the collector, giving notice of a determination to break up illicit trade, is 
dated Oct. 27, 1760. The argument of James Otis on writs of assistance was made 
in November, 1761. There is comparatively little political matter in the journals of 
1762. A letter of the Lords of Trade, dated Oct. 11, 1763, signed " R. Bacon, 
John Yorke, Hillsborough, Soame Jenyns," enjoined the governors to make "the 
suppression of the clandestine trade," "in the strictest manner the object of their 
immediate care." Admiral Colvill, in a letter dated Roniney, Halifax Harbor, Oct. 
22, 1763, gave the governor of Rhode Island notice that the " Squirril" would be 
stationed at Newport to execute the revenue acts; and the newspapers of that period 
contain accounts of the arrival of ships of war at different ports for the same pur- 
pose. 



THE STAMP ACT AND A SENTIMENT OP UNION. 163 

councils ; " ^ an idea carried out nine years later in the 
celebrated organization of committees of correspondence. 
This suggestion met with favor. The merchants of several 
towns in Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island held 
meetings, corresponded with each other, and adopted me- 
morials to the assemblies ; and representations were sent to 
England against the Sugar Act. All this proved of no 
avail. The act, about to expire, was renewed and made 
more obnoxious, and other duties were imposed. 

Meantime reports multiplied that the home government 
was devising a system of" inland taxation," that the method 
was to be stamp tax, and that the internal police of the 
colonies was to be altered.^ Charles Townshend was ad- 
vanced to the place of First Lord of Trade. He was as 
zealous for an alteration of the local governments as when 
he first became a member of this Board. The Chancellor 
of the Exchequer, George Grenville, declined to bring for- 



1 The issues of the "Boston Evening Post" of Nov. 21 and 28, 1763, contain an 
elaborate pnper, occupying seven cohimns, treating of " the great commotion the 
maritime towns are thrown into by the present juncture of affairs." This piece 
says, "The Sugar Act has from its first publication (1733) been adjudged so un- 
natural, that hardly any a'tempts have been made to carry it into execution " The 
writer recommended the mercliants of Boston to hold a general meetinor, and choose 
a committee to write to every maritime town in the province, advising the like 
measure; and "that a grand committee" prepare a remonstrance to the general 
court, asking action in favor of an abolition of the duty on foreign sugar and 
molasses; also that this committee open a correspondence with the principal mer- 
chants of the other colonies. The "Boston Gazette" of Jan. 16, 1764, says that 
the merchants were about transmitting their proceedings to several other govern- 
ments. The remonstrance of the Rhode-Island colony to the Lords of Trade agiiinst 
the Sugar Act is dated Jan. 24, 1764 ; and their agent was directed to present it, 
provided any three of the agents of the other colonies would unite with him in the 
same. The " Boston Post Boy" of Feb. 13, 1764, has an account of a meeting of 
the merchants of New York, held at Mr. Barn's Long Room, who appointed a 
committee to prepare a memorial to the legislature. 

2 The following paragraph was circulated in the newspapers. It is in the " Bos- 
ton Post Boy," Aug. S, 1763, and the " Gazette," Aug. 22 : — 

"Charleston, S C, .July 2. —A report prevails that there are letters in town from Lonaon 
of a late date, adyising that the parliament of Great Britain would soon take into their con- 
sideration the police of the .several American governments dependent on the mother-country ; 
and by act establish a form that would eCTectually obviate all the inconveniences which hath 
arisen or might arise from imperfections in either, and oblige them to be unanimous in all 
points tending to their general good." 



164 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

ward this part of tlie Bute policy, though fully resolved on 
the measure of taxation. Ou the 9th of March, 1764, he 
read in the House of Commons a series of resolutions de- 
claring the intention of the government to raise a revenue 
in America by a duty on stamped paper ; announcing, how- 
ever, that final action on the question would be delayed, 
with the view of allowing tlie colonists an opportunity of 
suggesting other modes of laying a tax. The king, on pro- 
roguing parliament, on the 19th of April, gave a hearty 
a])proval to what he characterized as " the wise regulations 
which had been established to augment the public revenues, 
to unite the interests of the most distant possessions of the 
crown, and to encourage and secure their commerce with 
Great Britain." What a commentary on this sentence were 
the events that occurred eleven years later, on the anniver- 
sary of the delivery of this speech. 

The Declaratory Resolves, the heralds of the famous 
Stamp Act, caused great sensation in the colonies. The 
American mind was soon occupied with the profound ques- 
tions of government, natural rights, and constitutional law. 
As the discussion went on in the public meeting, the press, 
and the general assemblies, the people became divided in 
sentiment. The opposers of the measures of the adminis- 
tration were termed Whigs, Patriots, and Sons of Liberty ; 
and the supporters of the administration were called Loyal- 
ists, Tories, and Friends of Government. Each party could 
point to men of learning, talents, and integrity, as actors or 
sympathizers, who believed in the justice of certain leading 
principles and objects, and sought by joint endeavor to pro- 
mote them ; and each party had to endure the evils inflicted 
on tlie cause by its own selfish, unscrupulous, rash, and 
violent members. Both sides claimed to act under the 
British Constitution, and to be h)yal to the crown. Both 
regarded with pride their connection with the mother-coun- 
try : nor did the Whigs, until after hostilities connnenccd, 
aim at a dissolution of this connection. 



THE STAMP ACT AND A SENTIMENT OF UNION. 165 

The Whigs, traced by the lineage of principles, had an 
ancestry in Buchanan and Languet, in Milton, Locke, and 
Sidney, or the political school whose utterances are inspired 
and imbued with the Christian idea of man.^ Their leading 
principle was republicanism as it was embodied in the free 
institutions of the colonies. The sentiment of their advo- 
cates on freedom and equality shows that they instinctively 
grasped the principle which has most thoroughly leavened 
modern opinion, and promises to modify most deeply the 
constitution of society and the politics of states.^ Their 
platform was summed up in the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, and became the American theory of government. 
Most of the men who figured in the grand political centre 
of the congress that adopted this measure, appear as promi- 
nent Whigs in the action of their respective localities during 
the stages whicli led to it ; and this remark is applical)le 
to the members of the convention that framed the Federal 
Constitution. In order to understand a revolution, it is 
necessary to consider it at its origin and at its termination.^ 
The Whigs, at the origin of this movement, were in a mi- 
nority in some of the colonies. When they organized into 
a party, it had powerful opponents in them all ; but it grew 
in numbers until it embraced substantially the whole people. 
This, therefore, was the national party. To it posterity are 
indebted for the mighty historic influence of American 
Union. 

The Tories had for their leading principle the supremacy 
of law, and for their leading object continual dependence on 
England. Their chief men in each colony were most of the 

1 See above, p. 9. 2 Maine's Ancient Law, 91, 92. 

3 Guizot remarks, " In order properly to understand a revolution, we must consider 
it at its origin ;ind termination, — in tlie earlie-^t plans which it puts forth and in the 
definite results which it attains In these its true character is revealed; by these we 
may j udge what were the real thouglits and wishes of the people among whom it 
took place. All that occurs between these two periods is more or less factitious, tran- 
sitory, and deceptive. The stream winds and wanders in its course ; two points alone, 
its source and its mouth, determine its direction . . . During the course of a revolu- 
tion, parties are formed and transformed. . . . That is really the national party wJiich 
appears at the origin and termination." — Monk's Contemporaries, 1. 



>< 



166 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

circle of officials appointed by the crown, and many persons 
of wealth and high social position.^ They were numerous 
in every colony, and had seven or eight journals in their 
interest. It is not easy to generalize accurately as to them. 
Some of the royal governors sent from England were im- 
bued with high-toned Tory ideas, and held the self-govern- 
ment that had grown up as equivalent to mob-law ; while 
Americans who took this side deplored the adoption of 
some of the ministerial measures, though they held that 
submission to them was due to the loyalty which they owed 
to the sovereign and the reverence which was due to parlia- 
ment. Hence they gradually became defenders of arbitrary 
power. 

At the date of the passage of tlie Declaratory Resolves, the 
Whigs were not united into a party ; and eight years elapsed 
before the celebrated organization of committees of corre- 
spondence. 

The intelligence of the intention to impose a direct in- 
ternal tax on the colonies was soon followed by important 
action, A writer remarks, that " the American people en- 
tered at once into one vast arena for the purpose of mutual 
defence and national concert." ^ It is more precise to say, 
that the portion of the people, soon to be known as Sons of 
Liberty, felt alike grieved at the contemplated aggression on 
the custom of self- taxation, which was held as guarantied 
by the British Constitution. This is evinced in indepen- 
dent -and spontaneous utterances in various colonies.^ 

1 Hutchinson (Hist. Mass., iii. 103) says, that " the terms Whig and Tory had never 
been much used in America," but that '' all on a sudden the officers of the crown, 
and such as were for keeping up their tiuthority, were branded with the name of 
Tories." This appears under the date of 1763. 

2 Burk's Hi.st. Virginia, iii 292. 

3 In the "Boston Gazette" of May 14, Nov. Anglicanus comments severely on 
the proposed tax, saying, " Have we ever yet forfeited our freedom '? Would it be 
just to put us on the footing of conquered slaves? " and proposes that " a remon- 
strance should be sent home," showing how this scheme would atfect the civil consti- 
tution as well as trade. In the "' New-York Gazette," May 24, it is said. " If the 
colonist is taxed without his consent, he will perhnps seek a change." And Richard 
Henry Lee, May 31, was even more decided. — Buncroft, v. 194. 



THE STAMP ACT AND A SENTIMENT OF UNION, 167 

The earliest organized action ^ on the subject was taken at 
Boston. At its annual meeting, held on the 24tli of May, 
the town expressed its views by instructing its represen- 
tatives respecting tlieir course in the next general court, in 
a paper prepared and moved by Samuel Adams. He was 
nearly forty-two years of age. He was a graduate from 
Harvard College, and had been a small trader and a collector 
of taxes. He, however, allowed his genius its native bent ; 
and by talk with tlie townsmen, and by contributions to the 
journals, he had acquired a wide reputation for knowledge 
of political questions. He was a genuine lover of liberty, a 
believer in the power of truth, justice, and right ; had faith in 
God and in the capacity of the Americans for self-govern 
ment ; and drew inspiration from the idea that he was ad- 
vocating the cause of humanity. If the elements of his 
character were such that he was called the last of the 
Puritans, his political views were ever broad and comprehen- 
sive ; and no selfishness marred the service which he sought 
to render his country. He averred that he was no leveller, 
and shunned the extremes that bring obloquy on a good 
cause ; but he was an elevator of his race because he 
labored to promote education and Christianity as the instru- 
mentalities of progress. He was passionate in his attach- 
ment to his native town and province and to their local 
rights ; but he looked upon them as virtually members of 
one political body composed of all the colonies, ^ and he held 
that their union would be their salvation. So simple was 



1 The meeting was called for the 15th, and adjourned to the 24th. The following 
shows the work of " The Caucas." On this word, see " Siege of Boston," 30, and 
" Life of Warren," 50. From " Boston Evening Post," May 14, 1764: — 

To the Freeholders, &c., — Modesty preyenting a personal application (customary In other 
places) for your interest to elect particular persons to be your representatives; we therefore 
request your votes for those gentlemen who have steadily adhered to your interest in times past, 
especially in the affair of Trade, by sending timely instructions, requested by our agent, rela- 
tive to Acts of Trade late pending in Parliament. 

Your humble servants, The Caucas. 

2 This is his language: " The colonies form one political body, of which each is 
a member." — Wells's Life of Adams, i. 198. 



168 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

he in his private life, and so consistent in his political 
course, that he was a personation of the democratic prin- 
ciple. His wise and timely action in this town-meeting was 
the beginning of a long, sagacious, and noble political 
career. 

The Instrnctions enjoin the representatives to maintain 
the invaluable rights held under the charter, and those in- 
dependent of the charter, enjoyed " as free-born subjects of 
Great Britain ; " to maintain the dignity of a free assembly ; 
and to endeavor to have the agent of the colony in London 
instructed, that, at that critical juncture, while he set forth 
their loyalty, their dependence on Great Britain, and their 
obedience to necessary regulations of trade, he sliould re- 
monstrate against the proposed scheme of taxation as anni- 
hilating the charter right to govern and tax, and as, striking 
at privileges held in common with fellow-subjects who were 
natives of Britain. They close with the following words : 
" As his majesty's other Northern American colonies are 
embarked with us in this most important bottom, we further 
desire you to use your endeavors, that their weight may be 
added to that of this province ; that, by the united applica- 
tions of all who are aggrieved, all may happily obtain re- 
dress." 1 In this earliest protest of a public meeting against 
the Stamp Act is the proposition for united effort. 

The General Court met six days after these, instructions 
were adopted. James Otis was one of the members from 
Boston, and had long been the pioneer of its patriots. He 
liad repeatedly been chosen a representative since the de- 
livery of the speech on writs of assistance, had increased his 
popularity by a pamphlet which vindicated the natural rights 
and constitutional liberties of the people, and was then at 
the height of his powers and influence. In pursuance of the 

1 This paper was printed in the " Boston Gazette " of May 28 and the " Boston 
Post Bo}'," and in the " Massachusetts Gazette" of May 31. It wns also printed by 
Otis in his "Rights of the Colonies." The origi al (Wells's Samuel Adams, i. 46' is 
among Adams's papers and in his handwriting. 



THE STAMP ACT AND A SENTIMENT OF UNION. 169 

instructions of the town, lie prepared a memorial on the pro- 
posed Stamp Act and the Sugar Act, in which he contended 
that the authority of parliament was circumscribed by cer- 
tain bounds ; that acts which went beyond these bounds 
were those of power without right, and consequently void ; 
and that as British subjects the people had the right to make 
the local laws and to tax themselves.^ This paper was 
ordered to be sent to the agent in London, with an elaborate 
letter, instructuig him to remonstrate against the proposed 
Stamp Act, and to urge a repeal of the Sugar Act. A com- 
mittee was then appointed to acquaint the other govern- 
ments with these instructions, and in the name and behalf 
cf the House to " desire the several assemblies on this con- 
tinent to join with them in the same measures."^ Thus the 
first effect of the Declaratory Resolves was a proposition 
brought before all the American assemblies for joint action. 
The Boston Instructions, widely circulated in the jour- 
nals,^ were soon followed by the inspiring pamphlet of Otis, 
entitled the " Rights of the British Colonies asserted and 
proved." In this he argued, that, in theory, civil gov- 
ernment is of God, and the original possessors of power 
were the whole people ; but that, in fact, authority was em- 

1 The General Court met on the 30th of May, 1764. It is said in the Journals 
of the House, that, on the 8th of June, " The rights of the colonies in general, and of 
the Province of Massachusetts Bay in particular, briefly stated, with remarks on 
the Sugar Act." were read; and that, on the 12th, this was read again. On tlie 
13th, it was adopted. Gordon (i. 151) has confounded this brief memorial with tiie 
pamphlet of Otis, which, he says, " was read twice over in the House" witliin four 
days; and he has been followed by others. The memorial was printed in this pam- 
phlet. 

" June 13, 1764. — Ordered that Mr. Otis, Mr. Thacher, Mr. Gushing, Captain 
Shcafe, and Mr. Gray be a committee, in the recess of the court, to write to the other 
governments, to acquaint them with the Instructions this day voted to be sent to 
the agent of the province, directing him to use his endeavors to obtain a repeal of 
the Sugar Act, and to exert himself to prevent a stamp act, or any other impositions 
and taxes upon this and the other American provinces; and that the said comniittee, 
in the name and behalf of this House, desire the several assemblies on this continent 
to join with them in the same measures. — Journal of House of Rep., 77. This 
resolve was not printed in the newspapers. 

8 The Boston Instructions were printed in the "Boston Gazette" and in 
other journals of that period. See p. 168. 



170 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

bodied in the British Constitution ; and that by this the 
colonies enjoyed the right, in their subordinate local legis- 
latures, of governing and taxing themselves. He cited 
Locke on the ends of government. He held that there 
could be no prescription old enough to supersede the law 
of nature and the grant of God Almighty, who had given 
all men a right to be free ; that nothing but life and lib- 
erty were hereditable ; that, in solving practically the grand 
political problem, the first and simple principle must be 
equality and the power of the whole.^ Tliese views of the 
Whigs were met by their opponents, by averring, tliat, how- 
ever excellent " the power of the people may seem in theory, 
it had always proved mischievous in fact ; " that in every 
age and country it had been impossible to combine the pas- 
sions of the multitude so as to produce order ; that the 
source of all the evils was the local governments, which gave 
too much power to the people and too little to the crown ; 
that the remedy was "■ a general reformation of the colo- 
nies " by an act of parliament ; that if this were not done 
in the present reign, it might be attempted by a king with 
the spirit of James H. ; and " his single order, with a regi- 
ment of dragoons, would dissolve all the charters in his 
dominions." ^ 

While this discussion was going on in the press, the 
Massachusetts committee of correspondence sent a circular 

1 This pamphlet was advertised in the "Boston Gazette " of July 23. It was 
reprinted in London by Almon; and in the " Gazette " of April 8, 1765, is the fol- 
lowing, copied from a Lond n paper : " As the ministry propose to ta.K the Americans, 
this excellent treatise, Avhich was lately published in the colonies and universally 
approved of there, is highly necessary for the perusal of the members of both Houses, 
and of such who choose to make themselves masters of an argument so little under- 
stood, but of so great consequence to every British subject and lover of constitu- 
tional liberty." 

2 The paper from which the sentences in the text are quoted was printed in the 
"Massachusetts Gazette" of May 31, occupying a whole side of the issue. It was 
very sharply and elaborately replied to in the "' Boston Gazette " of June 11, 1764. 
Its tone may be seen in the following: "Is it the fault or fortune of mankind that 
every little fellow, the instant he rises above that natural equality in which God has 
placed all men, begins to think his species a race of beings below his notice, but to 
fleece and impoverish?" 



THE STAMP ACT AND A SENTIMENT OF UNION. 171 

to the otlier assemblies, proposing harmonious action. The 
Rhode Island assembly chose a similar committee. Its 
chairman was Stephen Hopkins, the governor, who was 
making a noble record by his steady zeal and intelligent 
service. This committee addressed an excellent letter to 
the Pennsylvania assembly, in which it is urged, that, if 
the plan to tax the colonies were carried out, it would leave 
them nothing they could call their own ; and it is suggested, 
that, if all the colonies would enter with spirit into a de- 
fence of their liberties, if their sentiments should be col- 
lected, and their agents be directed to use this combined 
expression of opinion abroad, it might produce tbe desired 
result. The North-Carolina assembly chose a committee to 
express their concurrence with the views of the Massachu- 
setts circular.^ The New- York assembly directed their com- 
mittee, chosen to correspond with their agent in London, 
to correspond with the several committees or assemblies on 
the continent.^ The assemblies of Massachusetts, Connecti- 
cut, New York, Pennsylvania, Soutii Carolina, and Vir- 
ginia sent petitions and remonstrances against the proposed 



1 The Rhode-Island assembly elected a committee on the 30th of July, consist- 
ing of Stephen Hopkins, Daniel Jenckes, and Mr. Nicholas Brown. — Rhode-Island 
Records, vi. 403. Their letter, referred to in the text, is dated Oct. 8. 1764, and was 
addressed to Franklin as speaker of the Penns3'lvania assembly. — Sparks's Frank- 
lin, vii. 204. This assembly referred the Massachusetts circular to a committee, 
who reported a plan to co-operate with parliament in devising a system of taxation; 
but, on receiving the Rhode-Is'aud letter, it not merely resolved to reuionstrate against 
the proposed tax, but to send Franklin to London as their agent. — Gordon's Penn- 
sylvania, 431, 432. Martin (Hist. North Carolina, i. 288) says the committee of 
correspondence of North Carolina consisted of the speaker and four members. 

2 The New- York assembly, on the 7th of March, 1759, " ordered that the mem- 
bers of New York, or the major part of (hem. be a committee of correspondence to 
correspond with the agent of this colony at the court," &c; On the 18th of October, 
1764, the assembly ordered this committee to correspond with the several assemblies, 
or committees of assemblies, on this continent, &c. — Journal of the General Assem- 
bh' of New York. It is sta'ed in " New- York City during the Revolution," 1861, 
that, " in October, 1764, New York appointed the tirst committee of correspondence 
six years before Massachusetts, and nine years before Virginia took any steps to 
imitate her example." — p. 11. And this statement has been repeated and dwelt 
upon. It will be seen, by comparing the date of the action of New Y'ork with the 
action of the Massachusetts assembly, that this is an error. 



172 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Stamp Act, and gave directions that their agents should act 
together. No further attempt was made at that time to 
obtain united action. The state-papers elicited in this early 
movement were very able. All of them claimed for the 
colonies the traditionary right of self-taxation through their 
local assemblies. 

The tameness of the petition of the Massachusetts legis- 
lature, which was a compromise between parties in the 
Council and the House, gave great dissatisfaction to the pa- 
triots. The boldest language was used by the New-York 
assembly, in which the brothers Pliilip and Robert R. Liv- 
ingston, famed in the annals of that colony, took a promi- 
nent part. The assembly, in an address to Lieut.-Gov. Golden, 
written by Philip Livingston, express tlie hope that he would 
" heartily join with them in an endeavor to secure that great 
badge of English liberty of being taxed only with their own 
consent, to which they conceive all his majesty's subjects, at 
home and abroad, were equally entitled." Tlie Virginia 
memorials were exceedingly able and high toned. The pe- 
tition to the king and memorial to the Lords, were pre- 
pared by Richard Henry Lee, of a noble fame ; and the 
memorial to the commons by George Wythe, one of the 
great characters of Virginia, who adorned the cause by his 
private and public virtues. The Rhode-Island assembly, in 
addition to its petition, ordered to be published a paper on 
the rights of the colonies, written by its governor, Stephen 
Hopkins, whicli met witli large commendation.^ The asr 
semblics differed in the mode of presenting the question : 
biit the patriots were animated by a similar spirit and 

1 This was printed in a pamphlet, and was advertised in the "Boston Post Boy," 
Dec. 31, 1704, and favorably noticed in the "Massachusetts Gazette" of Jan. 3, 
1765. In the "Evening Post" of Murch 25, 1765, is the following extract from a 
letter from a merchant in New York, addressed to a person in Providence: " It is 
with the greatest pleasure I can acquaint you thnt your worthy governor's treatise 
on the ' Rights of the Colonies,' which hath been republished here, meets with the 
highest approbation, and even admiration, of the inhabitants of this city in general; 
and I d'lubt not but every friend to liberty and this country, wherever he be, will 
equally admire the spirit and reasoning of the honorable author." 



THE STAMP ACT AND A SENTIMENT OF UNION. 173 

principles ; especially were they a unit in claiming, in the 
language of tlie Virginia assembly, " their ancient and in- 
estimable right of being governed by such laws respecting 
their internal polity and taxation as were derived from 
their own consent, with the approbation of the sovereign or. 
his substitute." ^ 

I have not met with any other references to a correspond- 
ence between the assemblies by their committees, during 
the year 1764, than tliose already noticed. Tlie Boston In- 
structions of May were the only state-paper of a public body 
against the proposed Stamp Act printed in the journals 
until September,^ when the address of the New-York assem- 
bly to the governor appeared.^ Tlie petitions of Massachu- 
setts^ and Virginia^ were not in circulation until March. 

1 The "Boston Gazette" of Sept. 17, 1764, advertises as just published "The 
Sentiments of a British American." This pamphlet was written by Oxenbridge 
Thacher, one of the representatives of Boston. It says: — 

" It is esteemed an essential British right, that no person shall be subject to any tax but 
what in person or by his representative he hath a voice in laying." — " The colo'uiis have ever 
supported a subordinate government among themselves. Being placed at such a distance from 
the capital, it is absolutely impossible they should continue a part of the kingdom in the same 
seni'e as the corporations there are. For this reason, from the beginuing. there hath been a 
subordinate legislature among them, subject to the control of the mother-state, and from the 
necessities of the case there must have been such ; their circumstances and situation being 
in many respects so different from that of the parent State, they could not have subsisted 
without this. Now, the colonists have always been taxed by their own representatives and in 
their respective legislatures, and have supported an entire domestic government among them- 
selves." 

2 The memorial adopted by Massachusetts, .Tune 13, 1764, was pi-inted only in 
Otis's " Rights of the Colonies " and the Journal of the House. 

8 This address was copied into the " Boston Gazette " of Sept. 24, 1764. 

4 The petition of tlie Council and House, dated Nov. 4, 1764, was printed in 
the " Boston Evening Post" of Jlarch 11, 176.5, accompanied by the following para- 
gnph at the head: "From the ' S. -Carolina Gazette' of Feb. 6, 176.5 —A corre- 
spondent has favored us with the following, which may enable our readers to form 
some judgment of the present application to parliament of the northern cnlonies for 
the repeal of tlie Sugar Act, &c., &c." At the end is the following: " The petitions 
and representations of New York, Rhode Island, Sec, are much to the same effect 
witii the above, most of them exceed ng it in length and pathos. As these petitions 
may be supposed to be about this time under the consideration of parliament, in 
two or three months we may receive accounts of their reception by that august and 
supreme legislative body." 

P The Virginia papers were printed in the " Massachusetts Gazette " of March 
21, 1765, with the following introduction : " Having obtained a copy of an Address, 
Memorial, and Remonstrance of the Council and House of Burgesses of Virginia, 
we are requested to publish them, not doubting but they will be agreeable tc most 
of our readers." 



174 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

The patriots, however, reached tlie people through the 
press. A forcible appeal in one journal was often copied 
into others. A calm, clear, and admirable presentation of 
the whole American question spoke of the colonists as 
being, with respect to government, really the happiest peo- 
ple of any under the sun, as believing that Britain had laid 
the foundation of the greatest empire that ever existed, the 
more glorious as it was for ages to come destined to be the 
asylum of the oppressed. It averred that they owed all 
this prosperity to no other cause than tliat which made 
Rome the mistress of the world, gave grandeur, riches, and 
power to Venice and Holland, and constituted the glory 
of Britain, — Liberty. It declared that nothing but oppres- 
sion could unite the colonies in a design for independence, 
and that without Union they could do nothing.^ Another 
argument runs thus, " It is seldom, indeed very seldom, 
that any people have had more at stake than we at present 
have. Whether we shall be taxed arbitrarily or at the will 
of others in our internal police, is a question that is now 
deciding in Great Britain ; and this question amounts sim- 
ply to this. Whether we shall have any thing we can call 
our own or not."^ An impassioned appeal, expressed in 
violent terms, indignantly asked. If the rights and privi- 
leges of the people, as Englishmen, are violated, what 
reason, then, can remain why they should prefer the British 
to the French government or any other ? They will hate 
and abhor ministerial power ; and, " as soon as ever they 
are able, will throw it off." ^ miother writer argued, that, 
if the interests of the mother-country and the colonies can- 
not be made to coincide, if one constitution may not do 
for both, if she reqiiires the sacrifice of their most valu- 
able natural rights, — " their right of making their own 



1 Boston Gazette, Sept. 10, 1764, copied from the New York Mevcurj' of Aug. 27. 

2 Boston Evening Post of Feb. 4, 1765, copied from the Providence Gazette of 
Jan. 21, 1765. 

8 Boston Evening Post, March 25, 1765. 



THE STAMP ACT AND A SENTIMENT OF UNION. 175 

laws and disposing of their own property by representatives 
of their own choosing, . . . tlien the connection between 
them ought to cease, and sooner or hitcr it must inevitably 
cease." ^ These citations show the sentiment of the Whigs. 
They held, that, if taxation were imposed on them, in any 
shape, unless they had a legal representation where it 
was laid, they would be " reduced from the cliaracter of 
free subjects to the miserable state of tributary slaves." ^ 
Thus the proposed Stamp Act was held up as an aggression 
on what had become a grand historical influence in America, 
— local self-government. 

The petitions sent to England against the Stamp Act 
proved of no avail in preventing its passage. The ministers 
appealed successfully to the moneyed classes, by liolding out 
the prospect of being relieved from taxation ; and to the 
national pride, by averring that the right of sovereignty 
over the colonies was in issue, and ought to be settled: and 
all parties joined in favor of the new policy. In the House 
of Commons, when the bill imposing a duty on stamps was 
under consideration, even the gush of eloquence of Isaac 
Barrd, in which he called the Americans " Sons of Liberty,"^ 



1 Freeman, quoted by Bancroft, v. 284, under the date of May, 1765. 

2 Boston Instructions. 

8 This famous speech was heard by Jared Ingersoll of Connecticut, who sent 
over a report of it in a letter, which w;',s printed in the newspapers under the head 
of" New London, May 10, 1765." The next year he published a pamphlet, entitled 
"Mr. Ingersoll's Letters relating to the Stamp Act," having a preface dated "New 
Haven, June 15, 1766." In this pamphlet the report is much iiltered, and is the 
version commonly met with. Thus the 1766 version begins, "They planted," &c. ; 
that of 1765 begins, " Children planted," &c. In the 1766 version, the next sen- 
tence is, "They fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated and unhospitable 
country: " the 1765 version is, "They fled from yoi,ir tyranny into a then unculti- 
vated land." There nre upwards of thirtj' variations. I copy the original letter from 
the ''Boston Post Boy and Advertiser" of May 27, 1765: — 

Mr. Charles Townshend spoke in favor of the bill (stamp duty), and concluded his speech 
by saying to the following effect : — 

"These children of our own planting (speaking of America^ix), nourished by our indul- 
gence until they are grown to a good degree of strength and opulence, and protected by our 
arms, will they grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us from the heavy load of national 
expense which we lie under?" 

Which having eaid and sat down, Mr. Barre arose, and, with eyes darting Are and an out- 



176 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

did not prevent the debate from being termed languid : 
there was not a show of opposition in tlie House of Lords ; 
tlie bill passed by a great majority ; and, on the 22d of 
March, 1765, the act " that will be remembered as long as 
the globe lasts," received the royal assent. It provided that 
all bills, bonds, leases, notes, ships' papers, insurance poli- 
cies, and legal documents, to be valid in the courts, must 
be written on stamped paper, which was to be sold by public 
offices at prices that constituted a tax. In connection with 
this was the law which extended the jurisdiction of vice- 
admiralty courts in such a way as to exclude trial by jury. 

The Stamp Act found a public sentiment in the colonies 
prepared to oppose it as an internal tax. All parties re- 
garded it in this light. Some were in favor of yielding 
obedience to it as the law ; but the Whigs, though a por- 
tion of them involuntarily hesitated at the idea of resist- 
ing the execution of an act of parliament, soon became 

stretched arm, spoke as follows, with a voice somewhat elevated and with a sternucss iu his 
countenance which expressed in a most livel}' manner the feelings of his heart : — 

" Children planted by your care ? No ! Your oppression planted them iu A>nirica : they 
fled from your tyranny into a then uncultivated land, where they were exposed to almost all 
the hardships to which human nature is liable, and, among others, to the savage cruelty of the 
enemy of the country, — a people the most subtle, and, I take upon me to say, the most truly 
terrible of any people that ever inhabited any part of GOD'3 earth ; and yet, actuated by 
principles of true English liberty, they met all these hardships with pleasure, compared with 
those they suffered in their own country from the hands of those that should have been their 
friends. 

" They nourished up by your indulgence? They grew by your neglect of them. As soon 
as you began to care about them, that care was exorcised in sending persons to rule over them, 
in one department and another, who were perhaps the deputies of some deputy of members 
of this House, sent to spy out their liberty, to misrepresent their actions, and to prey upon 
them, — men whose behavior, on many occasions, has caused the blood of those Sons of 
Liberty to recoil within them, — men promoted to the highest seats of justice : some, to my 
knowledge, were glad by going to foreign countries to escape being brought to a bar of jus- 
tice in their own. 

"They protected by your arms? They have nobly taken up arms in your defence, have 
exerted their valor, amidst their constant and laborious industry, for the defence of a country 
whose frontiers, while drenched in blood, its interior parts have yielded all its little savings to 
your enlargement ; and, bki.ieve me, — remember I THTS day told you so, — that the 
same spirit which actuated that people at first will continue with them still ; but prudence 
forbids me to explain myself any further. God knows, I do not at this time speak from 
motives of party heat. What I deliver are the genuine sentiments of my heart ; however 
superior to me in general knowledge and experience the respectable body of this Hou-se may 
be, yet I claim to know more of America than most of you, having seen and been conversant 
in that country. The people there are as truly loyal, I believe, as anj' subjects the king has ; 
but a people jealous of their liberties, and who will vindicate them, if they should be vio- 
lated. — But the subject Is too delicate. I will say no more." 



THE STAMP ACT AND A SENTIMENT OF UNION. 177 

united in the view that submission would be a badge of 
slavery. 

The newspapers abound with detail relative to a passive 
resistance to the new policy, — the movement in favor of 
domestic manufactures and of a non-importation agreement. 
As the preparations appeared to enforce the oppressive Acts 
of Trade, it was asked in the press, " Is it impossible for the 
colonies ever to unite, and endeavor to prevent their destruc- 
tion ? " 1 The traditionary idea of union, partially acted ^ 
upon during the previous year in commercial and political 
matters, naturally suggested itself anew by the passage of 
the Stamp Act. v^ 

The Legislature of Massachusetts met soon after the re- 
ception of this news. James Otis was a member of the 
House. He was moody, impulsive, and at times rash in 
expression, but full of generous aims for the good of his 
country. He had seasons of such exaltation, tliat he seemed 
to himself to hear the prophetic song of the sibyls chanting 
the spring-time of a new empire.^ His hope rested on 
forming such a union of the colonies as " should knit and 
work into the very blood and bones of the original system, 
every region as fast as settled." ^ He suggested^ that there 
should be a meeting of committees from the assemblies 
to consider the danger of the colonies, and unite in a 
petition for a relief. The patriots hardly had a working 
majority in the House ; but the loyalists saw that it would 
be impossible to defeat this proposition, and, with the 
object of controlling the movement, aimed to keep it m 
their hands.^ Thus a resolve to carry out the suggestion of 
Otis was unanimously adopted. Tlie House selected for tlie 
delegates James Otis and two others, Oliver Partridge and 
Timothy Ruggles, whom the governor characterized as "fast 
friends of government, — prudent and discreet men, who 

1 Boston Gazette, Nov. 28, 1763. 2 Bancroft, v. 295. 

8 Otis, cited bj' Bancroft, v. 292. * Warren's American Revolution, i. 31. 

6 Gordon, i. 172. 

12 



178 THE KISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

would never consent to any improper application to the 
government of Great Britain." ^ The House adopted a cir- 
cular, ordered it to be signed by the speaker, and to be 
sent to the several assemblies on the continent. It was a 
comprehensive measure, designed to lay the foundation for 
tlio union of all the colonies in opposition to the new policy, 
when the opinion was common tliat union between them was 
impracticable.^ 

The early response to the circular was unpromising. 
The speaker of the New Jersey Assembly promptly replied, 
that the members of that body were " unanimously against 
uniting on the present occasion ; " ^ and for several weeks 
no movement appeared in favor of the great and wise 
measure of convening a congress. It soon, however, re- 
ceived a powerful impetus. It was said of Virginia, that tlie 
intelligence of the passage of the Stamp Act " filled the whole 

1 Ibid., iii. 173. 

2 The legislature met on the 29th of May. On the 6th of June, a committee of 
nine was appointed to consider the sbite of public atfairs; namely, Mr. Speaker 
(Samuel White), Brigadier Ruggles, Colonel Partridge, Colonel Worthington, Gen- 
eral Winslow, Mr. Otis, Mr. Gushing, Colonel Salton^tall, and Captain Sheafe. The 
committee reported the resolve for a congress the same day. The Speaker, Otis, 
and Mr. Lee were appointed to prepare the circular. This was adopted on the 8th. 
On the 24th, a committee was chosen to prepare instructions to the delegates and a 
letter to the agent. On the 25th, the House ordered " that all the proceedings relative 
to sending a committee to New York be printed in this day's journals,"' &c. — Jour- 
nals of the House. The circular was also printed in the " Boston Evening Post '' of 
Aug. 26, 1765, and is as follows: — 

Boston, June 8, 1765. 

Sir, — The House of Representatives of this province, in the present session of General 
Court, have unanimously agreed to propose a meeting, as soon as may be, of committees from 
the houses of representatives or burgesses of the several British colonies on this continent, to 
consult together on the present circumstances of the colonies, and the difficulties to which 
they are and must be reduced by the operation of the acts of parliament for levying duties 
and taxes on the colonies, and to consider of a general and united, dutiful, loyal, and humble 
representation of their condition to his majesty and to the parliament, and to implore relief. 
The House of Representatives of this province have also voted to proposej that such meeting 
be at the city of New York, in the province of New Yor'.c, on the first Tuesday in October 
next, and have appointed the committee of three of their members to attend that service, with 
such as the other houses of representatives or burgesses, in the several colonies, may think fit 
to appoint to meet them ; and the committee of the House of Representatives of this province 
are directed to repair to the said New York, on the first Tuesday in October next, accordingly ; 
if, therefore, your honoi-able House should agree to this proposal, it would be acceptsiblc 
that as early notice of it as possible might be transmitted to the Speaker of the House of Kepre- 
gentatives of this province. Samuel White, Speaker. 

8 Letter from the Speaker of the New Jersey Assembly, June 20, 1765. 



THE STAMP ACT AND A SENTIMENT OF UNION. 179 

colony with the utmost consternation and astonishment." ^ 
The House of Burgesses, then in session, delayed action. 
A vacancy enabled the people of Louisa County, in May, to 
elect Patrick Henry a member. He was a young man who had 
failed as a merchant and had struggled manfully with pov- 
erty ; but, after a short course of study, had become a lawyer, 
and was in a lucrative and growing practice. He was of an 
ungainly figure, wore coarse clothes, loved music, dancing, 
and pleasantry, and, among his boon companions, would talk 
of the "yearth " and of " men's naiteral parts being improved 
by larnin." ^ He had singleness of aim, an indwelling love 
of liberty, depths that could be profoundly stirred, and won- 
derful intellectual gifts. His gusliing, fiery, and thrilling 
eloquence had been heard before a committee of the bur- 
gesses ; but this was his first term as a member. He en- 
tered the assembly with the general indignation intensified 
in him as in a focus. Within three days of the close of the 
session, he took a blank leaf of a law-book, and wrote on it 
a series of resolves, to the effect that the people of Virginia 
were entitled, as subjects, to the privileges enjoyed by the 
people of England ; that they liad the right of being " gov- 
erned by their own assembly, in the article of their taxes 
and internal police ; " that attempts to vest such power in 
any other persons " had a tendency to destroy British as 
well as American freedom ; " and that the people were not 
bound to obey any other law imposing a tax. These reso- 
lutions were seconded by Mr. Johnston. They were opposed 
by Bland, Pendleton, Randolph, and Wythe, on the ground 
that the burgesses had expressed similar views in a more 
conciliatory way. In this debate, the genius of the native 
orator soared to such heights, that to Jefferson, a delighted 
listener, Henry seemed to speak as Homer wrote. He 
startled the House with " a warning flash from history " as he 
exclaimed, " Tarquin and Caesar had each a Brutus; Charles 
the First, his Cromwell ; and George the Third " — and 

1 Letter in Boston Gazette, July 22, 1765. 

2 Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry, 53. 



180 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

paused, when tlie speaker cried " Treason ! " and the word 
was repeated on the floor, while Henry, with Ins eye fixed 
on tlie chair, closed the sentence, " may profit by their ex- 
V ample." ^ Fonr resolves only were entered on the journal, 
when the governor dissolved the assembly. The series, con- 
sisting of six resolves and a preamble, were printed in tlie 
newspapers as having been adopted,- and had a marked effect 

1 I copy the version in Bancroft, v. 277. Jefferson (Wirt's Henry, S4) mentions 
Henry's pause. The relition is somewhat different in Wirt, 83. 

'- There is much matter about these res ilves in Wirt's " Life of Henry." Here (SO) 
will be found the four resolves as recorded on the journals, May 30, 1765. Also (74) 
a copy printed from Henrj-'s handwriting. Neither correspond with the series as 
originally printed. The Jlassachusetts Assembl}', when they issued their circular, 
did not know of the action of the Virginia Assembly. The series of resolves, as they 
contributed to shape public opinion, appeared in " The New Port Mercury " June 24, 
and were copied into the Boston papers of Jul}' 1. I print for reference fi"om the 
" Boston Gazette." There are but slight variations in it from the copy in Marshall 
ii., App. 2G: — 

Extract of a letter from a gentleman in Philadelphia to his friend in this town, dated last 
Tuesday : — 

I have euclosed tlie resolves of tlie A'irginia Assembly on debating the Stamp Act. The 
governor, as soon as he heard what they were about, sent for them, and without preamble, 
told them he would dissolve them ; and that minute tliey were dissolved. As they are of an 
extraordinary nature, [I] tli ought tliey might not be disagreeable. They are as follows : — 

Whereas the Hon. House of Commons, in England, have of late drawn into question how 
far the General .\spembly of this colony hath power to enact laws for la\ing of taxes and im- 
posing duties, payable by ttie people of this his majesty's most ancient colony : for settling 
and ascertaining the same to all future times, the House of Burgesses of this pre.-eut General 
Assembly have come to the following resolves : — 

Resolueil, That the first adventurers, settlers of this his majesty's colony and domiuions of 
Virginia, brought with them and transmitted to their posterity, and all other his niMJesty's 
subjects since inhabiting in this his majesty's colony, all the privileges and immunities that 
have at any time been held, enjoyed, and possessed by tlie people of Great Britain. 

ResoiverJ, That by two royal charters, granted by King .Tames the First, the colony 
aforesaid are declared and entitled to all privileges and immunities of natunil-born subjects, to 
all intents and purposes as if they had been abiding and born within the realm of England 

Resolved^ That his majesty's liege people of this his ancient colony have enjoyed the right 
of being thus governed by their own assembly in the article of taxes and internal police, and 
that the same have never been forfeited, or any other way yielded up. but have been con- 
stantly recognized by the king and people of Britain. 

Ri-solved, therefore, That the General Assembly of this colony, together witli his majesty 
or his substitutes, have, in their representative capacity, the only exclusive right and power to 
lay taxes and imposts upon the inhabitants of this colony ; and that every attempt to vest 
such power in any other person or persons whatever than the General Assembly aforesaid, 
' is illegal, unconstitutional, and unjust, and have a manifest tendency to destroy British as 

well as American liberty. 

Resolved, That his majesty's liege people, the inhabitants of this colony, are not bound to 
yield obedience to any law or ordinance whatever, designed to impose any taxation whatsoever 
upon them, other than the laws or ordinances of the General Assembly aforesaid 

Resolved, That any person who shall, by speaking or writing, assert or maintain that any 
person or persons other than the General Assembly of this colony have any right or power to 
Impose or lay any taxation on the people here, shall be deemed an enemy to his majesty's colony. 



THE STAMP ACT AND A SENTIMENT OF UNION. 181 

on public opinion. The principle they embodied as to taxa- 
tion had been early asserted : the tone of opposition was 
exceeded by the issues of the press ; but it was heralded as 
the voice of a colony. It was a bold stroke in this way to 
proclaim, that no obedience was due to a law imposing a 
tax not sanctioned by a general assembly. 

The fame of the resolves spread as they were circulated 
ii: the journals, and in a short time the people could read 
the apt historical reference of the " forest-born Demos- 
thenes," as he pointed George III. to memorable examples.^ 
The Whigs hailed the action of the Old Dominion with ad- 
miration. It was said in the press, " The people of Virginia 
have spoken very sensibly, and the frozen politicians of a 
more northern government say they have spoken treason." ^ 
Oxenbridge Thacher, as he lay on his death-bed, expressed 
the feeling of the patriots, as he exclaimed, " Oh ! those Vir- 
ginians are men : they are noble spirits." The commander 
of the British force in New York wrote home, that the resolves 
gave the signal for a general outcry over the continent.^ 

This Virginia action, like an alarum, roused the patriots 
to pass similar resolves. The town of Providence, in pub- 
lic meeting, instructed their representatives, in the first 
place, to use their utmost endeavors to have commissioners 
appointed to attend a congress to meet other commission- 
ers at New York, agreeably to the proposal of the Massa- 
chusetts province ; and then, to procure the passage of a 
series of resolves, in which were incorporated those adopted 
by Virginia, as the voice of the colony. This stands out in 
the proceedings of the time as another bold utterance.* 
It was a timely and welcome indorsement of the action of 



1 Letter from Virginia, June 14, 1765, in " London Gazetteer," Aug. 13, 1765 , and 
a New-York paper, Oct. 31, 1765. Bancroft, v. 277. 

2 Boston Gazette, July 8, 1765. 3 Gage to Conway, Sept. 23, 1765. 

* These resolves were passed Aug. 13, and occupy about a column and a half of 
the Boston papers of Aug. 19. In the "Boston Post Boy" of March 24, 1766. it 
is said that Providence was the first town on the continent tliat instructed their 
representatives after the passage of the Stamp Act. 



182 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Massachusetts and Virginia. This is the way in whicli the 
two most important of the thirteen colonies went hand in 
hand in rolling the ball of revolution. 

The resolves of Providence gave the influence of a town 
in favor of the proposed Congress, — an example warmly 
commended by the press. Soon after their publication, it 
became known that a colony had chosen delegates. When 
the Massachusetts circular was debated in the assembly of 
South Carolina, and the opposition to it by the Tories was 
strong, Christopher Gadsden, who, it is said, " was born a 
republican," advocated the measure with a noble zeal. He 
was sent to England for his education ; and learned Latin, 
Greek, and French, and subsequently the Hebrew and Orien- 
tal languages. He was trained in mercantile affairs in Phila- 
delphia, and at Charleston became a merchant of large 
enterprise. He acted in the belief that the American cause 
was the cause of liberty and human nature. He was a great, 
wise, and good man. To him belongs no small share of 
the merit of persuading the assembly to adopt this measure 
of choosing commissioners.^ The Whigs, in all quarters, 
favored the project. The Tories ridiculed or opposed it. In 
a short time, it was announced that Pennsylvania, Rhode 
Island, and Connecticut had chosen delegates. Boston, in 
town-meeting, expressed the greatest satisfaction at the pros- 
pect that most of the colonies would unite ; ^ the press 
heartily commended the Congress, and reproduced the old 
device of Franklin, with its motto, " Join or Die."^ All 
the original thirteen colonies eitiier expressed sympathy or 
chose delegates ; and thus union was welcomed as befitting 
the dignity, the honor, and the needs of a free people. 

1 Ramsay's South Carolina, ii. 457, 459. The delegates from this colony were 
appointed Aug. 2. Tiiey were announced in the " Boston Post Boy," Aug. 26. The 
Providence Resolves were passed Aug. 13, and were immediateh' printed. 

2 Boston Instructions in " Massachusetts Gazette," S^ept. 19. 

3 The "Constitutional Courant," "printed by Andrew Marvell, at the s'gn of the 
bribe refused, on Constitutional Hill, North America," appeared with this motto on 
the 21st of September; and the figure, with the address, appears in the " Boston Post 
Boy " of Oct. 7. 



THE STAMP ACT AND A SENTIMENT OF UNION. 183 

Meantime, " Tiie Sons of Liberty" — a term that grew 
into use soon after the publication of Barry's speech ^ — 
were entering into associations to resist, by all lawful means, 
the execution of the Stamp Act.^ They were long kept 
secret, which occasioned loyalists to say, that there was a 
private union among a certain sect of republican principles 
from one end of the continent to the otlier.^ As they in- 
creased in numbers, they grew in boldness and publicity, 
announcing in the newspapers their committees of corre- 
spondence, and interchanging solemn pledges of support. 
The Virginia resolves, as circulated in the press, declaring 
that no obedience was due to the Stamp Act, strengthened 
the purpose of these associations. Their organization, from 
the first, meant business of the most determined character. 
It was Cromwellian in its aims, going straight to the mark 
of forcible resistance. Though it was imbued with one 
spirit, circumstances occasioned the special manifestations. 
Thus, when the Virginia resolves had been for a month 
doing their mission, the names of the stamp distributers 
appeared at Boston ; and, six days afterwards, those transac- 
tions occurred here, at the time Andrew Oliver promised 
not to serve as stamp officer, which made the " Fourteenth 
of August " memorable as the anniversary of the uprising of 
the people against the Stamp Act. As a great concourse 
gathering under the elm, subsequently named Liberty Tree, 
marched through the streets, the words " Liberty, Property, 
and No Stamps " passed from mouth to montli. They 
proved to be talismanic words. They were echoed in 
processions formed in other places for similar purposes. 

1 The " Boston Gazette " of Aug. 12, 1765, announced that the town of Providence 
had met and chosen a committee to instruct their representatives, who were to 
report "to-morrow," when it said, "Those Sons of Liberty weie to convene again 
ibr the noblest of all causes, their country's good; " and it commended the example 
to other towns. 

2 " I am informed that associations are forming to which several thousands huve 
subscribed in that government, in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, in concert with 
the other American governments, to draw up remonstriinces to his majesty. &c., and 
to oppose this tremendous act by all lawful means." — Boston Gazette, July 22, 1765. 

8 Galloway's Letter, Jan. 13, 1766. 



184 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

In some cases, the unhappy stamp distributers were com- 
pelled to stand high before the people and shout, " Liberty, 
Property, and No Stamps." These words became a favor- 
ite toast, and stood as a motto at the head of the press.^ 
In their name were committed outrages similar to those 
which characterized popular outbreaks in England, — the 
destruction of buildings, plundering, and personal wrong.^ 
This work had been ascribed to the republican cause, and 
enabled its enemies to connect it with anarchy and bring it 
to ruin. In America, where the people had grown up in a 
spirit of reverence for law as well as a love of liberty, 
these outrages occasioned deep abhorrence, and constituted 
a profitable lesson.^ 

When the public mind was thus inflamed, the members 
chosen to attend the congress met, Oct. 7, in the City Hall 
at New York,* which abounded with the bitterness, strife, 
and all the elements of a political paroxysm. In no place 
were the Sons of Liberty more determined, or were their 
opponents more influential.^ It was the lieadquarters of the 

1 The "Boston Post Boy and Advertiser" of Nov. 18, 1765, placed at its head 
this line: "The united voice of all his majesty's free and loyal subjects in America. 
Liberty iind Property and No Stamps." 

2 The following are the dates, obtained in the newspapers, of the popular up- 
risings: In Boston, Aug. 14; Norwich, Aug. 21; New Loudon, Aug 22; Providence, 
Aug. 24; Lebanon, Aug. 20; Newport, Aug. 27; Windham, Aug. 27; Annapolis, 
Aug. 29; Elk Ridge, Aug. 30; New Haven, Sept. 6; Portsmouth, Sept. 12; Dover, 
Sept. 13; Philadelphia, Oct. 5; New York, Nov. 1. The greatest outrages were 
committed in Bo.ston on the 26th of August, in Newport on the 27tii, at Annapolis on 
the 29th, and at New York on the 1st of November, in which houses were damaged 
or demolished. 

8 The anniversary of the 14th of August, 176.5, — the date of the uprising .against 
the Stamp Act, — was observed for several years by the patriots; but, at the tirst 
celebration, held under " the sacred elm," Liberty Tree, the tenth toast was, " May 
the 26th of August, 1765 (the date of the assault on Hutchinson's House), be veiled 
in perpetual darkne-ss." 

* At the time of the first meeting, Sept. 30, Maryland and New Jersey had not 
chosen delegates. On Tuesdaj', Oct. 1, an express arrived, informing that delegates 
would be chosen from Maryland; and, on the ne.Kt day, another, stating that the 
members of the New Jersey assembly would ciioose — Boston Post Boy, Oct. 14. 

6 Much interesting matter relative to "The Sons of Liberty in New York" may 
be found in " A paper read before the New-York Historical Society, Ma}' 3, 1859, 
by Henry B. Dawson," and printed for private distribution. 



THE STAMP ACT AND A SENTIMENT OF UNION, 185 

British force in America, the commander of which, General 
Gage, wielded the powers of a viceroy. A fort within the 
city was heavily mounted with cannon. Ships of war were 
moored near the wharves. The executive, Lieutenant-gov- 
ernor Golden, was resolved to execute the law. When the 
Massachusetts delegates called on him, he remarked that 
the proposed congress would be unconstitutional, and un- 
precedented, and he sliould give it no countenance.^ 

The congress consisted of twenty-eight delegates from ^ 
nine of the colonies ; four, thougli sympathizing with the 
movement, not choosing representatives.^ Here several of 

1 Boston Post Boy, Oct. 14, 1765. 

' The congress consisted of members chosen and commissioned as follows: — 

Massachusetts — James Otis, Oliver Partridge, Timothy Ruggles. They were 
chosen, June 8, by the general assembl^^, and bore a commission signed by Samuel 
White, speaker. 

South Carolina. — Thomas Lynch, Christopher Gadsden, John Rutledge. 
They were chosen, Aug 2, by the assembh', and bore the journal of the votes of 
their election, signed by Edward Rawlins, speaker. 

Pennsylvania. — John Dickinson, John Morton, George Bryan. They were 
chosen, Sept. 11, by the assembly, and bore instructions signed by Charles Moore, 
clerk. 

Rhode Island. — Metcalf Bowler, Henry Ward. They were chosen by the 
assembly, and bore a commission signed by Samuel Ward, the governor 

Connecticut. — Eliphalet Dyer, David h'owland, William S. Johnson. They 
were chosen, Sept. 19, by the assembly, and bore a copy of the vote appointing 
them, and instructions signed by Thomas Fitcli, the governor. 

Delawake. — Thomas McKean, Caesar Rodney. They were designated in- 
formally by fifteen of the eighteen members of the assembly, and bore three instru- 
ments, dated Sept. 13, 17, and 20, and signed by the members from the counties of 
New Ciistle, Kent, and Sussex. 

Makyland. — William Murdock, Edward Tilghman, Thomas Ringgold. They 
were chusen by the assembly in October, and bore a commission signed by Robert 
Lloyd, speaker. 

New Jei'.sey. — Robert Ogden, ITendrick Fisher, Joseph Boriien. They were 
designated by "a large immber of the representatives," Oct. 3, and bore a certificate 
signed John Lawrence. 

New York. — Robert R. Livingston, John Cruger, Philip Livingston, William 
Bayard, Leonard Lespinward. They bore a certified copy of the votes of the jour- 
nals, dated April 4, 171- (April 4, 1759), Dec. 9, 1762, ;uul Oct. 18, 1764, constituting 
■• tiie members of the city of New York " and " Robert R. Livingston '' a committee 
of correspondence. — See p. 171, where the first date is March 9, 1759. 

Virginia, New Hampshire, Georgia, and North Carolinii did not send delegates. 
The " Journal of the Proceedings '' contains a letter from the New-Hampshire assem- 
bly, dated June 29, 17G5, signed A. Clarkson, clerk, approving ol' the Congress, and 
promising to join in any address they might be honored with the knowledge of; and 



186 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

the patriots, who had discussed the American question in 
their localities, met for the first time.' James Otis stood in 
this body the foremost speaker. His pen, with the pens of the 
brothers Robert and Phillip Livingston, of New York, were 
summoned to service in a wider field, John Dickinson, of 
Pennsylvania, was soon to be known through the colonies 
by " The Farmer's Letters." Thomas McKean and Ctesar 
Rodney were pillars of the cause in Delaware. Edward 
Tilghman was an honored name in Maryland. South Caro- 
lina, in addition to the intrepid Gadsden, had, in Thomas 
Lynch and John Rutledge, two patriots who appoar promi- 
nently in the sul)sequent career of that colony. Thus this 
body was graced by large ability, genius, learning, and com- 
mon sense. It was calm in its deliberations, seeming un- 
moved by the whirl of the political waters. 

Tiie congress organized by the choice, by one vote, of 
Timothy Ruggles, a Tory, — as the chairman, — and John 
Cotton, clerk. The second day of its session, it took into 
consideration the rights, privileges, and grievances of " the 
British American colonists." After eleven days' debate, 
it agreed — each colony having one vote — upon a declara- 
tion of riglits and grievances, and ordered it to be inserted in 
the journal. This earliest embodiment of principles by an 
American congress consists of a })reamble and fourteen re- 
solves. They expressed the warmest sentiments of affection 
and duty to the king, " all due subordination to that august 
body, the parliament," and claimed all the inherent rights 
and privileges of natural-born subjects within the kingdom of 
Great Britain. They affirmed that it is inseparably essential 
to the freedom of a people, and one of the undoubted rights 



a letter fi-om Georgia, dated Sept. 6, signed Alexander Wylly, in behalf of sixteen 
of tlie twenty- five representatives, warmly sympathizing with the cause, and stating 
that the governor would not call thcni together, but promising a concurrence with 
the action. These letters were addressed to the Speaker of the Massachusetts as- 
sembly. 

The statements in this note are derived from the "Journal of the Proceedings" 
of this congress in Niles' " Principles and Acts of the Revolution," p. 451. 



THE STAMP ACT AND A SENTIMENT OP UNION. 187 

of Englishmen, that taxes cannot be imposed on them with- 
out their own consent, given personally or through their 
representatives ; that the colonists could not be represented 
in the House of Commons, and could be represented only 
in their respective legislatures ; and that no taxes could be 
constitutionally imposed on them but by these legislatures. 
They declared that the trial by jury is tlie inherent and 
invaluable right of every British subject in these colonies ; 
and they arraigned the recent acts of parliament as having a 
manifest tendency to subvert the rights and liberties of the 
people. 

The congress then matured an address to His Majesty, a 
memorial to the House of Lords, and a petition to the House 
of Commons, which were ordered to be engrossed.^ These 
papers enlarge on the two main points of the resolves ; 
namely, the claims respecting taxation and the trial by jury. 
They say, " We glory in being subjects of the best of kings, 
having been born under the most perfect form of govern- 
ment." They express an ardent desire for a continuation 
of the connection between Great Britain and America ; and 
aver that the most effectual way to secure this would be by 
fixing the pillars thereof on liberty and justice, and by re- 
cognizing the inherent rights of the people ; specifying, as 
essential to freedom, self-taxation and trial by jury. They 
emphasize the important and vital point, that the remote 
situation and peculiar circumstances of the colonists ren- 
dered it impossible they should be represented except in 
their respective subordinate legislatures, which, as nearly 
as convenient, had been moulded after that of the mother 
country, and exercised full powers of legislation under the 
English constitution. They averred that they and their 
ancestors had been born under the forms of <>;overnment 



1 The committee on tlic address to the king were Robert R. Livingston, William 
Samuel Johnson, and William Murdock; on the memorial to the House of Lords, 
John Rutledgc, Edward Tilghman, and Philip Livingston; on the petition to the 
House of Commons, Thomas Lynch, James Otis, and Thomas McKean. 



188 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

which had been established here, and which had protected 
their lives, liberties, and properties ; that they entertained 
great fondness for old customs and usages ; and they prayed 
that these circumstano3s might be taken into consideration 
and their just rights restored. 

These resolves and petitions elicited long debates. Only 
few memorials, however, remain of the sentiments of the 
speakers. Some of the members pleaded, as the foundation 
of their liberties, cliarters from the crown. Robert R. Living- 
ston, of New York, would not consent to base American 
liberties on such a foundation. Christopher Gadsden, who 
objected to petitioning parliament, on the ground that the 
colonists derived their rights neither from Lords nor Com- 
mons, with clear discrimination and in memorable words, 
said, " A confirmation of our essential and common rights as 
Englislnnen may be pleaded from charters safely enough ; 
but any further dependence on them may be fatal. We 
should stand upon the broad, common ground of those natural 
rio-lits that we all feel and know as men and as descendants 
of Englishmen. I wish the charters may not ensnare us at 
last, by drawing different colonies to act differently in this 
great cause. Whenever that is the case, all will be over 
with tlie whole. There ought to be no New-England man, 
no New-Yorker, known on the Continent ; but all of us 
Americans." ^ -. 

The congress advised the colonies to appoint special agents 
to solicit relief, and for this purpose to unite their utmost 
endeavors. When the matter of signing was discussed, some 
of the members objected, and urged that each colony ought 
to petition separately. The chairman, Ruggles, said, " It was 
against liis conscience " to sign ; when McKean, of Dela- 
ware, " rung the change on the word conscience so loud," that 

1 Bancroft, v. 335. Pitkin, in his " Political and Civil History of tlie United 
States," &c., ii. 448, 1828, printed an elaborate " Report of a Committee on the 
Subject of Colonial Rights," from a copy found among the papers of Dr. Johnson, 
one of the members from Connecticut. A comparison of this puper with the papers 
adopted by the congress shows that it was much used by their authors. 



THE STAMP ACT AND A SENTIMENT OF UNION. 189 

Rugglos gave him a challenge before all the members, which 
was promptly accepted by McKeaii.^ The delegates present 
from only six of the colonies — except Ruggles and Ogden — 
signed the petition ; those from New York, Connecticut, and 
South Carolina not being authorized to sign. On the 25th 
of October, the congress adjourned.^ 

Special measures were taken to transmit the proceedings 
to the unrepresented colonies.^ The several assemblies, on 
meeting, heartily approved of the course of their delegates 
who concurred in the action of congress ; but Ruggles, of 
Massachusetts, was reprimanded by the speaker in the name 
of the House, and Ogden, of New Jersey, was hung in effigy 
by the people.* The action of the assemblies was announced 
in the press.^ Meanwhile the Sons of Liberty, through 

1 John Adams's Works, x 61. McKenn says Ruggles left early the next morn- 
ing, without an adieu to any of his brethren. 

2 The clerk was directed to sign the minutes of the proceedings of this congress, 
and deliver a copy for the use of each colony. Two sets were sent immediately 
to England by two vessels. The Declaration of Rights is in the " Massachusetts 
Gazette " of March 20, 1766, copied from the " Providence Gazette Extraordi- 
nary;" the three petitions are in the "Boston Gazette" of April 14, 1766. The 
" Providence Gazette " had a brief criticism on some of the points. The proceed- 
ings of the congress in part were printed in London by Almon in 1767. "Niles's 
Register" of Julj- 25, 1812, contained the whole proceedmgs and documents, printed 
from a manuscript copy attested by the secretary, John Cotton. It was found among 
the papers of Cffisar Rodney. This was reprinted, in 1S22, in Niles's " Principles 
and Acts of the Revolution," &c. 

8 The Congress, Oct. 25, resolved, " That the gentlemen from the MassachuseUs 
Baj' be requested to send a copy thereof to the colony of New Hampshire; the gen- 
tlemen of Maryland ti) Virginia; and tlie gentlemen of South Carolina to Georgia 
and North Cardlina." — Journal in Almon's Tracts, 1767. 

4 The newspapers announced (Boston Post, Dec. 16) tliat the conrhic) of Borden 
and Fisher of New .lersey was approved. Ogden was obliged to decline his place as 
speaker. The Massacliusetts assembly, Feb. 12, voted, " That Brigadier Ruggles, 
with respect to his conduct at the congress of New York, has been guilty of neglect 
of duty, and that he be reprimanded therefor by the speaker." This was done the 
next day. — Boston Evening Post, Feb. 17, 1766. 

5 The Connecticut assembly ordered their committee to sign the petitions and for- 
ward them. — Mass. Gazette, Nov. 14. The concurrence of the South-Carolina as- 
sembly w;is announced Dec. 2. The New York assembly approved of the attendance 
of tlieir members, Nov. 20, and voted to send petitions to the king and the Lords and 
Commons. Their address to the Lords (Dec. 11, 1765) acknowledges " the Parlia- 
ment of Great Britain justly entitled to a supreme direction and government over 
the whole empire for a wise, powerful, and lasting preservation of the great bond of 



190 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

their committees of correspondence, urged a continental 
Union ; pledged a mutual support in case of danger ; in 
some instances stated the numbers of armed men that might 
be relied on ; and thus evinced a common determination to 
resist the execution of the Stamp Act.^ If the thoughtful 
grieved at seeing the unscrupulous seize the occasion of 
a nullification of a bad law in order to break from all law, 
thev rejoiced to see springing into activity a spirit of union. 
It was said in the press, " It is the joy of thousands that 
there is union and concurrence in a general congress ; "^ it 
was judged that this body had transacted the most important 
business that ever came under consideration in America ; 
and Gadsden expressed the Americanism of the hour as 
he wrote, " Nothing will save us but acting together. The 
province that endeavors to act separately must fall with the 
rest, and be branded with everlasting infamy."^ 

While the thirteen colonies, viewed as a whole, presented 
this aspect of union, there was an embodiment of public 
sentiment, by local oi-ganizations, not less interesting or sig- 
nificant. It would require too much space to describe the 
doings of " the respectable populace " in their public meet- 
ings, or of towns in instructing their representatives, or the 
dealing with the stamped paper, or what took place on the 
day the odious act was to go into effect. The hurricane, 
which commenced on the 14th of August, did not soon 
spend its force. The political waters were lashed into waves 
of fearful height. In this time of confusion and tumult, 

union and the common safety." — Journals of the Assembly. The Governor of Vir- 
ginia did not convene the assembly; but, in the " Journal of the Cong'-ess," this col- 
onj' was understood to have concurred in the action. 

1 Gordon (i. 199) says that the Boston Sons of Liberty proposed, February, 17CG, in 
a letter to the brotherhood at Norwich, a continental union, of which the latter greatly 
approved in a reply, Feb. 10. " The New-York Sons of Lilierty sent circular letters 
as far as South Carolina, urging a continental union." Many of the towns of Massa- 
chusetts sent pledges to march with their whole force to defend those who should be 
in danger from their action on the Stamp Act. The same spirit prevailed in New 
York, Virginia, North Carolina, Connecticut, and other colonies. — Bancroft, v. 427 

2 New-London Gazette, Nov. 1, 1765, cited in Bancroft, v. 353. 
8 Bancroft, v. 359. 



THE STAMP ACT AND A SENTIMENT OF UNION. 191 

the public sentiment was furtlier embodied, in the general 
assemblies, in elaborate series of resoh^es which were cir- 
culated in the newspapers.^ The committees appointed to 
prepare these papers would be likely to refer to prior action, 
and to use terms at hand, in doing this not very easy work. 
An analysis of tliese resolves shows that this was the case. 
Sentences, and, indeed, endre resolves, in the Virginia se- 
ries, re-appear in those of Connecticut, Maryland, and Rhode 
Island ; especially tlie words in which the colonial right 
was asserted " in the article of taxes and internal police ; " 
and the New-Jersey and South-Carolina series contain sev- 
eral of the resolves of congress. 

The above narrative of the proceedings in the colonies, 
growing out of the attempt of the ministry to carry out the 
new policy, shows how the two political schools regarded 
union when it was in American hands, and was urged for 
American objects. 

The party of the prerogative met the proposition to hold 
a congress with ridiciile, or denounced it as disloyal.^ Lieu- 
tenant-Governor Colden, of New York, held that it would 
be inconsistent with the constitution of the colonies, by 
which their several governments were made distinct and 
independent of each otlier.^ Governor Franklin, of New 

1 The newspapers, after the middle of August, are laden with the proceedings 
of towns and of meetings, as they were termed, "of the respectable populace " of 
localities, and are too numerous to speci'y. I give the dates of the resolves of the 
general assemblies, and where Ihey appeared in print. These resolves were, per- 
haps universally, circulated at full length in the newspapers. 

Virginia. — March 29. The whole series of resolves (see page 180) were circu- 
lated as having passed, and appeared first in a Newport paper, June 24. 

Rhode Island. — The resolves of Providence, adopting the Virginia resolves and 
adding one on admiralty courts and trial by jury, were pissed Aug. 13. The assem- 
bly resolves were passed in September, and are in the " Boston Evening Post," 
Sept. 23. 

Pennsylvania. — Sept. 21. In the " Boston Post Boy," Oct. 7. 

Maryhmd. — September. In the " Boston Post Boy," Oct. 21. 

Connecticut. — October. In the " Bo«ton Post Boy," Nov. 11. 

Massachusetts. — Oct. 29. In the " Boston Gazette," Nov. 4. 

South Carolina. — Nov. 29. In the " Boston Gazette," Nov. 29. 

New Jersej'. — Nov. 30. In the " Massachusetts Gazette," Nov. 30. 

New York. — Dec. 17. In the " Post Boy," Dec. 30. 

2 Colden, Letter, Sept. 23, 1765. 



Y. 



192 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Jersey, a son of the philosopher, but an invctoratG Tory, 
pronouuced it irregular and unconstitutional. Governors 
Wright, of Georgia, and Fauquier, of Virginia, succeeded in 
preventing the assemblies of these colonies from sending 
delegates. Their sympathizers in the congress, Ruggles 
and Ogden, urged that each colony ought to act separately, 
and declined to unite with the other delegates in signing 
the memorials. In a similar spirit, the Lords of Trade 
presented to the king the proceedings of Massachusetts, — 
on the occasion of the reception of the Declaratory Resolves, 
and in calling the congress, without a sanction from the 
crown, — as of dangerous tendency. ^ These facts evince 
the same jealousy of any action originating outside of official 
circles, aiming at a union of the colonies, that was seen in 
the case of the New-England confederacy, and in subsequent 
propositions, however innocent, for joint effort. Tiiis scliool 
aimed to keep America weak, by fostering the isolation of 
the colonies, or it aimed at such a unity by a consolida- 
tion of popular functions as would repress the republican 
element. It held that the government in England had un- 
limited power over the colonies, and that they ought not 
even to unite in a petition without its permission. 

The Whigs held that the colonies, tliough sul)ordinate, 
were under a limited government ; that they had an un- 
doubted right to join in petitions ; and that union was the 
most efficient means to obtain a redress of grievances. 
Hence the attempt to unite the merchants, by committees of 
correspondence, in protests against the injustice of the acts 
of Trade ; the proposition for joint action in the earliest or- 
ganized movement in opposition to the contemplated Stamp 
Act; the cordial reception of the Massachusetts proposal for 
a congress ; the associations of the Sous of Liberty, pledging 
to each other their lives in the support of their rights ; and 
the inspiring cry for " A continental union." It is not without 
significance that at that time the term " America " was used 

1 Parliamentary History, xvi. 122. The representation is dated Oct. 1, 1765. 



THE STAMP ACT AND A SENTIMENT OF UNION. 193 

as applied to a people, and the terra "country" as applied 
to America.^ The inspiration of the thought which those 
terms expressed is seen in the language in which Christopher 
Gadsden urged his countrymen to lift above all merely pro- 
vincial names the name of American. Thus union had 
become a sentiment, a moral power, and began to influence 
the course of events. A similar sentiment could not be 
roused in Greece in its palmiest days. In the course of the 
great history of that people, at times, a purpose at once 
common, innocent, and useful, spontaneously brought to- 
gether fragments of that disunited race ; but it was not 
powerful enough to counteract tliat bent towards a petty 
and isolated autonomy Avhich ultimately made slaves of them 
all.2 This aucient lesson was strongly and continuously 
enforced on the colonists. The stern words in which Gads- 
den connected a refusal to unite with infamy, show the 
strength of the conviction of the popular loadei-s respecting 
union. In many ways, the public mind, especially through 
the press, grew familiar with the idea that the colonies were 
linked together in a common destiny. 

I have alluded but cursorily to the passive resistance to 
the new policy by the non-importation agreement, and by 
fostering domestic manufactures, when the watchword was 
Frugality and Industry. Then Americans asserted, practi- 
cally, the right of labor to choose its fields and enjoy its 
fruits ; when even liberal thinkers advocated the most 



1 The following, from the " Massachusetts Gazette," Oct. 17, 1765, will show the 
way in which America as a country was referred to: — 

" Phil. Oct. 3. We hear the stamp paper for this province is arrived in Capt. Holland, 
who lies at New Castle under the protection of one of his majesty's sloops of war. It is im- 
possible to conceive of the consternation this melaucholly news has diffused through this 
city. Rage, resentment and grief appeared painted in every countenance and the mournful 
language of one and all our inhabitants seems to be farewell, farewell, Liberty. America, 
America, doomed by a premature sentence to slavery ! Was it thy loyalty — thy filial obe- 
dience — thy exhausted treasures — and the rivers of blood shed by thy sons in extending 
the glory of thy arms, provoked thy mother country thus unjustly to involve thee in 
distre.';s, by tearing from thee the darling privileges of thy children ? Or was it the perfidy ? 
— But I cannot proceed, — tears of vexation and sorrow stop my pen. my country, my 
country ! " 

2 Crete's Greece, ed. 1862, iv. 24. 

13 



194 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

vexatious restrictions on industrial pursuits, and the old 
colonial system was so triumphant, tliat Chatham declared 
he would not allow a hobnail to be manufactured in Amer- 
ica. Otis averred that " one single act of parliament had 
set people a- thinking, in six months, more than they had 
done in their whole lives before." ^ The thought was, that 
Americans might clothe themselves with tlieir own hands, 
and be independent of a foreign supply. The members of 
the assemblies were urged to set the example. " I have in 
my younger days," wrote Dulany, " seen fine sights, and 
been captivated by tlieir dazzling pomp and glittering splen- 
dor ; but the sight of our representatives, all adorned in 
complete dresses of their own leather and flax and wool, 
manufactured by the art and industry of the inliabitants 
of America, woiild excite not the gaze of admiration, the 
flutter of an agitated imagination, or the momentary amuse- 
ment of a transient scene ; but a calm, solid, heart-felt 
delight." ^ The daughters of America entered into this 
movement with a spirit that gave inspiration to the cause, 
— a forerunner of the beautiful and noble service which, 
in the late civil war, they rendered not merely to their 
country, but to our common humanity. The details of this 
movement are voluminous. It was inculcated in prose and 
verse, as patriotism to use domestic manufactures, and thus 
" save a sinkins; land." ^ 



1 Rights of the British Colonies, 54. 

2 " Considerations on the Propriety of imposing Taxes on the British Colonies, 
for the purpose of raising a Revenue, by Act of Parliament. North America." 
The preface is dated Virginia. It was published Oct. 14, 1765. (McMahon's Mary- 
land, 349.) It was commendgd in the journals as a masterly performance, by one 
of the most celebrated civilians nn the Continent, who was educated in England, 
and bred at the Temple. It was by Daniel Dulany, of Marj-land. 

8 Songs were early used to rouse the people to action. The " Massachusetts 
Gazette" of Oct. 31, 1765, has a song entitled "Advice from the Country," which 
was copied into the " Gentleman's Magazine " for December, as a " Song sung at 
Boston, in New England." One of the stanzas runs: — 

" With us of the woods 

Lay aside j'our fine goods. 
Contentment depends not on clothes; 



THE STAMP ACT AND A SENTIMENT OF UNION. 195 

In this varied action — the riotous element of wliich was 
deplored by the sagacious patriots — there was revealed a 
sentiment in favor of union, wliich made the individuals of 
different colonies alive to each other's welfare. Its germs 

We hear, smell and see, 
Taste and feel with high glee, 
And in winter have huts for repose." 

The " Boston Evening Post '" of Feb. 10, 1766, has a song entitled " America In- 
structing her Children; composed with the design of inspiring Sentiments ot 
Frugality and Industr}'-." The following is the beginning and ending: — 

" Whilst raging winter ruled the year, 

the earth lay hid in snow: 
Deep in a cypress grove I heard 

the voice of tuneful woe. 
Led by the sound, I pierced the gloom 

where stood an ancient Pine ; 
Beneath it sat an heavenly Dame, 

her form was all divine. 
An azure mantle starred with gems, 

loose from her shoulders hung; 
A golden harp shone in her hand, 

■whilst thus she played and sung: — 
* What baneful power seeks to harm us, 

where peace and solemn silence reigns! 
Frightful omens all ai'ound us; 

I hear the horrid clank of chains. 



Awake my sons and look around you, 

rise up and save a sinking state; 
'Tis Luxury, false Syren, wounds you, 

rise soon, or you will be too late. 
With nervous arm strike deep the Whale, 

pluck Codfish tugging at your line; 
Take the broiled Mack, rel by her tail, 

let Fops iimong Ten- Trinkets shine. 
Let Oxen spread my valleys over, 

drinking at the christel rills; 
Whilst fleecy Flocks do nibble clover, 

growing on my verdant hills. 
Rise up my Daughters, light your tapers, 

take the Spinriinr/- Wheel in hand. 
Your babes shall prattle how your labors 

helped to save a sinking land.' 

The black North-wester sunk to silence, 

ravished by so sweet a note ; 
The robin dropped his scarlet berry, 

and in concert joined his throat." 



196 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

and roots were seen even in the past of the diversity of the 
governments ; in the attachment of each to similar political 
ideas and institutions, and a common determination to main- 
tain tliem. Each claimed as an inheritance liberties secured 
in the common law as enforced in the declaration of the 
Great Charter and the Bill of Rights,^ that were beyond the 
domain of king or parliament ; and especially the two lib- 
erties that were assailed, — self-taxation, and trial by jury. 
This community of political ideas among the patriots is seen 
in the resolves of the village, of the colony, and of the 
congress. They asserted no more, no less, than the early 
colonists claimed under the two Charles's and James II. 
But the fathers were but few in number, and could only 
put forth their claims. Their descendants, under George III., 
had become numerous, were united, felt strong, and they 
insisted on a recognition of their rights. This was done, 
however, in a spirit of loyalty to the British constitution. 
It was the belief and the hope of the popular leaders, that 
their unanswerable reasoning and their united attitude 
would procure a change of administration, and an aban- 
donment of an odions policy ; and that this would " per- 
petuate the sovereignty of the British Constitution and the 
filial dependence of all the colonies." ^ 

The Americans believed their hopes were about to be 
realized, when the intelligence spread that the ministry 
had been changed, and the Rockingham Cabinet was in 
power. It was followed by the still more inspiring news 
that parliament had repealed the Stamp Act, which the 
king signed on the 18lh of March, 1766. There was then 
a burst of joy. In England, William Pitt received an ova- 
tion. The king returned from Westminster to the palace 

1 Dulany, 27. He says, p. 11, of the opinions of court lawyers: " They have all 
declared that to be legal which the minister for the time has deemed to be expe- 
dient." He snys that Republican was used as a nick-name, as applied to " the 
British inhabitants of North America;" because it implied thfit they were enemies 
to the government of England. 

2 Stephen Hopkins closes his pamphlet in these words. 




THE STAMP ACT AND A SENTIMENT OF UNION. 197 

amid the huzzas of the multitude. Bow bells were set 
a-ringing ; the ships in the Thames displayed their colors ; 
and London streets were illuminated. In America, the 
people overflowed with joy. They expressed their grati- 
tude in every form that could be devised ; town vying with 
town, and colony with colony, in patriotic demonstrations. 
In both countries there was a general jubilee as for a 
great deliverance. Robertson, the historian, spoke the feel- 
ing of liberal minds in England, when he rejoiced that the 
millions in America would have the chances of running 
the same great career which other free people have held 
before them. Samuel Adams expressed the views of his 
countrymen when he said that they blessed their sovereign, 
revered the wisdom and goodness of the British parliament, 
and felt themselves happy. 

This, however, was not the interpretation which tlie Tories 
put upon the rejoicing in America. They represented it as 
exultation for a triumph over the sovereignty. A British 
official promptly said the sequel would be, " Addresses of 
thanks, and measures of rebellion." ^ Tiiis stupid judg- 
ment was in keeping with the charge, reiterated by the 
Tories during this period of opposition to the Stamp Act, 
that the colonies aimed at independence. This charge was 
pronounced by the colonists a stale pretence, entirely sense- 
less and ridiculous, and almost beneath a serious refutation.^ 
"We utterly deny," they said, "that such an intention ever 
entered into our hearts."^ This denial is found in private 
letters, in the press, and in State papers. Samuel Adams, 
in an emphatic disclaimer, appealed to the affection enter- 
tained by the Americans for the mother coiuitry ; * and 
James Otis averred " that British America would never 
prove undutiful till driven to it as the last, fatal resort 

1 William Kuox, on the morning after the vote passed, said this to Mr. Grenville. 
Extra Official Papers, 2, 26. 

2 Boston Evening Post, March 25, 1765. 
8 Boston Post Boj', July 15, 1765. 

* Letter, Nov. 13, 1765. Wells's Life of Adams, i. 101. 



198 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

against ministerial oppression, which will make the wisest 
mad and the weakest strong." ^ 

The patriots, however, were emphatic in declaring that 
America would use her strength to preserve her liberties ; 
the facts already stated evincing the determination of the 
people, if need be, to take the field. Eichard Henry Lee, in 
a remarkable letter, written as in a prophetic spirit, said, 
"The ways of Heaven are inscrutable; and frequently 
the most unlooked-for events have arisen from seemingl} the 
most inadequate causes. Possibly this step of the mother 
country, though intended to oppress and keep us low, in 
order to secure our dependence, may be subversive of this 
end." 2 John Adams saw in the intention in the ministry 
an entire subversion of the whole system of the fathers of 
America, and the introduction of the inequalities of feudal- 
ism ; and he held that to submit to slavery would be a 
sacrilegious breach of trust, as offensive in the sight of 
God as it would be derogatory to the honor, the interest, or 
the happiness of the people.^ Richard Bland appealed to the 
laws of nature and the rights of mankind, and urged the 

1 Otis's Rights of the Colonies, 51. It was said, that the colonists, by fraud or 
force, would claim to be an independent legislature. Otis, in denying this, saj's: 
" This, I think, would be revolting with a vengeance. What higher revolt can 
there be than for a province to assume the right of an independent legislature or 
state." 

2 Letter, May 31, 1764. 

8 Boston Gazette, Oct. 21, 1705. This Journal printed, Aug. 12, a communica- 
tion witliout a title or a signature; and continuations of it in the issues of Aug. 19, 
Sept. 30, and Oct. 21. This paper was written by John Adams. It was copied 
into the " London Chronicle," and in 1768 printed by Almon, in a volume entitled 
"The True Sentiments of America," where it is termed " A Dissertation on the 
Canon and Feudal Law." It was subsequently reprinted under this title. — See 
John Adams's Works, iii. 447. The following is an extract from the last number: — 

" Let us presume, what is in fact true, that the spirit of liberty is as ardent as ever among 
the body of the nation, thou;5h a few individuals may be corrupted. Let us take it for 
granted, that the same great spirit which once gave Casar so warm a reception ; which 
denounced hostilities against .lohn till Magna Chiirta was signed; which severed the head 
of Charles the First fi-oui his body, and drove James the Second from his kingdom ; the 
same great spirit (may Heaven preserve it till the earth shall be no more) which first seated 
the great grandfather of his present most gracious majesty on the throne of Brifciin, — 
is still alive and .active and warm in Kngland ; and that the same spirit in America, 
instead of provoking the inhabitants of that country, will endear us to them for ever, and 
Bccuro their good will." 



THE STAMP ACT AND A SENTIMENT OP UNION. 199 

colonies to unite in a representation of their common griev- 
ances ; and, as a part of the answer to the question " what 
should be done if justice shall be denied," said that injury 
and violence would render the colonies an alien, and pointed 
to the Helvetic Confederacy and the States of the United 
Netherlands as glorious examples of what " a petty people 
in comparison " could do when acting together in the cause 
of liberty.^ Choiseul, Minister of the Marine of France, 
foresaw the struggle for independence, and in a memorial 
urged his sovereign to be prepared for the crisis.^ 

Meantime the prosperity and progress of the colonies con- 
tinued to elicit foreshadowings of the future of America. 
Ezra Stiles, one of the gifted Americans of liis age, antici- 
pated the independence of his country. He said tliat tliere 
wonld be a provincial confederacy formed on free suffrage, 
which in time would grow into an imperial dominion ; ^ 
Watson, Vicar of Yorkshire, in a sermon on American 
colleges, adopting the thouglit that all arts and sciences 
were travelling westward, speculated on what America would 
be as a powerful and independent state, — the school of Chris- 
tian knowledge and of liberal science.'* James Otis wrote 

1 Richard Bland, of Virginia, printed, early in 1766, a pamphlet, entitled " An 
Enquiry into the Rights of tlie British Colonies: intended as an answer to 'The 
Regulations lately made concerning the Colonies, and the taxes upon them con- 
sidered.' In a Letter addressed to the Author of that Pamphlet." The writer 
of the pamphlet held " that the colonies should be prohibited from uniting in a 
representation of their general grievances" to the common sovereign. Bland re- 
plied as follows: — 

'' Divide et impera is your maxim in colony administration, lest ' an alliance 
should be formed dangerous to the mother country.' Ungenerous insinuation! 
detestable thought ! abhorrent to every native of the colonies ! who by an uniformity 
of conduct have ever demonstrated tiie deepest loyalty to their king as the father 
of his people, and an unshaken attachment to the interest of Great Britain. But 
you must entertain a most despicable opinion of the understandings of the colonists, 
to iniMgine that the}' will allow divisions to be fomented between them al)out incon- 
siderable things, when the closest union becomes necessary to maintain, in a consti- 
tutional way, their dearest interest." 

2 Bancroft, v. 361. 

8 1700. Sermon on the Capture of Montreal, cited in ''Duyckink's Cyclopedia," 
i. 159. 

4 1763. The sermon w;is printed in England in 1763. Extracts were copied 
into the " Gentleman's Magazine " for May, 1783. 



-7^ 



200 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

that the world was on the eve of the highest scene of earthly 
power and grandeur that has ever been displayed. ^ "^ It was 
circulated in tlie press of England and of America, that the 
inhabitants of the colonies, at the least computation, num- 
bered two millions ; that in twenty-five years they would 
grow to four ; in fifty years, to eight ; in seventy-fiv^e years, to 
sixteen ; and in a hundred years, to thirty-two millions, — a 
striking prospect of increasing population : and it. was said, 
" Little doubt can be entertained, that America will in time 
be the greatest and most prosperous empire that perhaps 
the world has ever seen." ^ 

1 Eights of the British Colonies. 

2 A piece from the " Londoa Gazetteer," Nov. 1, 1765, copied into the " Boston 
Evening Post," Feb. 10, 1766. 



CHAPTER VI. 

How THE Assertion by Parliament, in the Townshend Revenue 
Acts, of Absolute Power over the Colonies, was met by a 
Constitutional Opposition, and how an Arbitrary Royal 
Order elicited Action in a Similar Spirit by Thirteen As- 
semblies, IN Defence of their Local Self-Government. 

17GG TO 1770. 

The sentiment of union, evoked by the attempt to carry out 
so much of the new policy as was developed in the Stamp 
Act, had a solid basis in the traditional attachment of the 
people of each colony to similar political ideas. The next 
embodiment of this policy in the Townshend Revenue Acts, 
designed to establish the principle that parliament had ab- 
solute power over the colonies in all cases whatsoever, was' 
met by a constitutional opposition on the basis of social 
order, and occasioned a further development of the senti- 
ment of union by interTColonial correspondence ; while an 
arbitrary royal order, designed to check a growing com- 
munion of the colonies, elicited action by thirteen assem- 
blies' asserting rights inherent in local self-government, and 
served to fix public opinion as a power in the American 
political world. 

Thoughtful minds questioned whether the repeal of the 
Stamp Act, " on European rather than American reasons," ^ 
was worthy of the rejoicings that bui'st spontaneously, in 
full chorus, from the heart of a grateful people. The Re- 
peal was accompanied by the famous Declaratory Act, that 
parliament had the right to bind the colonies in all cases 
whatsoever. The great cliampion of Repeal, William Pitt, 
asserted for parliament tliis right of governing, as emphati- 

1 Boston Gazette, May 5, 1766. 



202 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

cally as he denied the right to tax.^ It was said, however, 
that this act was but laying down an abstraction. Against 
it were the declarations of tlie thirteen colonies, that the 
people had inherent rights, and that the powers of the king 
and the parliament were limited by the Constitution. Some 
urged, that the new declaration might be, and ought to be, 
met by a fresh assertion, by each colony, of what it regarded 
as its rights.^ But the appeals for a continuation of agita- 
tion against an abstraction proved of little account. Tiie 
Sons of Liberty dissolved their association, and, in a great 
measure, ceased their operations.^ The masses are moved 
more by feeling than by reasoning, and the paramount feel- 
ing was that of gratitude. It was said that tlie Repeal 
hushed into silence every clamor, and composed every wave 
of popular disorder into a smooth and peaceful calm. The 
colonies cheerfully and gratefully acknowledged their de- 
pendence on the crown of Great Britain.* 

The Repeal was regarded by the king as a fatal compli- 

1 Pitt, in the debate in which he astonished the House with the declaration, " I 
rejoice that America has resisted," said, " It is my opinion that this liingdom has no 
right to lay a tax upon the colonies; at the same time I assert the authority of this 
kingdom over the colonies to be sovereign and supreme, in every circumstance of 

government and legislation whatever Taxation is no part of the governing 

or legislative power. Taxes are a voluntary gift and griut of the commons alone." 
— Report in Massachusetts Gazette, May 8. 1766. 

2 The '' Boston Post Boy " of Aug. 11, 1766, copied an elaborate paper, dated 
" Virginia, 20th of May, 1766," and signed "A British American," which covers 
the whole ground of the Repeal and the Declaratory Act. It urged that the latter 
should be expunged fi-om the journals of parliament. It says, " We really consider 
ourselves as the same people with the inhabitants of Great Britain, Mud feel the 
same sentiments of joy or sorrow, on every acquisition or loss of our mother coun- 
trj', a* if we still inhabited her happy island . . . Will it be beneath the dignity 
of that august body (parliament) to expunge from their journals an entry fraught 
with such mischievous consequences?" ''Algernon Sidney," in the "Boston' Ga- 
zette," Aug. 18, 1766, in arraigning the Declaratory Act, says, " Let every House of 
assembly on the Continent assert those rights it is not iu their power to alienate." 

8 Leake's Life of Lamb, 86. 

* Diary of John Adams. Works, ii. 203. " Tliere never was a time, since the 
first European set forth on this continent, wherein the colonies, from one end to 
the other, more cheerfully and affectionately acknowledged their dependence on the 
crown of Great Britain. Never were a people more in love with their king and the 
Constitution by which he has solemnly engaged to govern them." — Boston Even- 
ing Post, Sept. 14, 1767. 



THE TOWNSHEND ACTS AND PUBLIC OPINION. 203 

auce.^ It proved only a pause in the attempt to carry out 
the new policy. Soon after, to the astonishment and sorrow 
of tlie liberal world, William Pitt occepted a peerage, and 
entered the House of Lords ; when Charles Townshend 
became the leader of the House of Commons. He liad won- 
derful ability, and was fully informed on American affairs ; 
but was arrogant and imperious, and prized the smiles of 
the sovereign more than the friendship of the Earl of Chat- 
ham. He continued to favor the policy of remodelling 
the local governments, which he urged wlien a member 
of the Board of Trade. On the 3d of June, 1766, he spoke 
from the ministerial benches the following remarkable 
words : " It has long been my opinion that America should 
be regulated and deprived of its militating and contradic- 
tory charters, and its royal governors, judges, and attorneys 
be rendered independent of the people. I therefore expect 
that the present administration will, in the recess of par- 
liament, take all necessary previous steps for compassing 
so desirable an event." After adducing the madness and 
distractions of America as his justification, he said, " If I 
should differ in judgment from tlie present administration 
on this point, I now declare that 1 must withdraw ... I 
hope and expect otherwise, trusting that I shall be an in- 
strument among them of preparing a new system." ^ The 
journals contained rumors that new measures were proposed 
for America, and among them were these, — that the gover- 
nors had strict orders to prevent the assembling of another 
Congress ; that the local governments would be remodelled ; 
and that Great Britain would assert its dignity and sove- 
reignty. Townshend became the master spirit of the cabinet 
that succeeded the Rockingham ministry. His speeches in 
support of violent methods, as one of his sympathizers ex- 
pressed it, and urging " a different police founded on and 
supported by force and vigor," ^ had a wide circulation. He 

1 Lord Mahon's Hist. England, vi., App. xlix. 

2 Bancroft has a manuscript report of this speech, vi. 10. 
8 Moflfut's Letter, in *' Boston Post Boy," Oct. 20, 1766. 



204: THE RISE OF THE EEPUBLIC. 

urged the expediency of a revenue from America, and of 
using an army to collect it, saying that he voted to repeal 
the Stamp Act, not because it was not a good measure, l)ut 
because Repeal was at that time expedient. He repeated 
the sentence, that the galleries might hear it ; remarking, 
" After that, I do not expect to have any statue erected in 
America." ^ 

These reports proved the forerunners of the Townshend 
Revenue Acts, the chief of which was introduced into par- 
liament the 13th of May, 1767, received the royal assent 
the 29th of June, and was to go into effect on the 20th of 
November. These acts, in brief, imposed duties on glass, 
paper, painters' colors, and tea ; established a board of cus- 
toms at Boston to collect the revenue throughout America ; 
and legalized writs of assistance. Tlie preamble of the act 
imposing duties stated that they were laid for raising a rev- 
enue to provide for the support of civil government in the 
provinces, and for their general defence. It was designed 
that the governors, judges, and attorneys should be rendered 
independent of the local assemblies. The extent to which 
parliament interfered with these bodies was seen in the law 
suspending the New- York assembly from the exercise of 
the powers of legislation until it should comply with the act 
requiring it to provide quarters for British troops. 

The new duties were imposed not on commercial grounds, 
but for political reasons ; not to regulate trade, but for 
revenue and to assert British sovereigjity. The scheme was 
thoroughly dissected by the press. Its aggression on the 
ancient self-government was pointed out. The line between 
external and internal taxation — between the spheres of the 
colonial or local and the imperial — was not clearly defined; 

1 The " Boston Evening Post " of May 4, 1767, has a letter dated London, Feb. 14, 
1767, which says, " Taxing the colonies, in some shape or other, begins to be talked 
of." Another letter, Feb. 18, says, that the action of the New-York assembly, declin- 
ing to comply with the act of parliament for quartering troops, caused it to be " gen- 
erally said they are in a state of rebellion, and are endeavoring to throw off theii 
dependence." The action of the Massachusetts assembly also gave great offence 
A letter on this action was printed in the " Boston Post Boy," March 2 1767 



THE TOWNSHEND ACTS AND PUBLIC OPINION. 205 

fet it was the theory of the "Whigs, tliat each colony, as 
fta integral part of the nation, had a general assembly, 
ft'liicli, tlioiigli subordinate, was a free, deliberative body ; 
and, wliile parliament had the right to make the laws for 
England, these assemblies, with the council, had the right 
to make the laws bearing exclusively on America ; and that 
the king was the common executive, whose rightful preroga- 
tive was in force in each colony as it w;is in England.^ This 
law-making power regulated " the internal police ; " which 
meant, that it provided for the elective franchise, represen- 
tation, trial by jury, the habeas corpus, the concerns of 
order, education, and religion. This power was the custo- 
dian of the municipalities ; and they, in the fine words of 
Mirabeau, " are the basis of the social state, the safety 
of every day, the security of every fireside, the only pos- 
sible way of interesting the entire people in the government, 
and of securing all rights." ^ Now the new scheme was 
regarded by Americans as more dangerous to their liberties 
than the Stamp Act, because it was an aggression on the 
old usages, grown into a right, of fashioning the " internal 
police." A British official, who knew America by personal 

1 Hutchinson, in a letter dated March 27, 1768, says, " The authority of parlia- 
ment to make laws of any nature whatsoever in the colonies is denied with the 
same freedom their authority to tax the colonies has been for two or three years 
past. This is a new doctrine ; but it spreads every day, and bids fair to be as 
generally received as the other " In a letter dated Aug. 27, 1772, he says, " Before 
America is settled in peace, it would be necessurj' to go to the bottom of all the 
disorder, . . . the opinion that every colony has a legislature within itself, the acts 
and doings of which are not to be controlled by parliament, and that no legislative 
power ought to be exercised over the colonies except by their legislatures." He 
termed this "the doctrine of independence of parliament." He said (Letter, Aug. 
27, 1772), " For assemblies or bodies of men who shall deny the authority of parlia- 
ment, miiy not all their subsequent proceedings be declared to be ipso facto null 
and void, and every member who shall continue to act in such assembly be subject to 
penalties and incapacities." This was a wanton misrepresentation of the position of 
the Whigs. The Massachusetts House of Kepresentutives say, in a letter to the Mar- 
quis of Rockingham, in reference to parliament, " M3' Lord, the superintending power 
of that high court over all his majest}''s subjects in the empire, and in all cases 
that can consist with the fundamental rules of the Constitution, was never ques- 
tioned in this province, nor, as the House conceives, in any other." The patriots 
claimed only the right of self-taxation, and to make the local law. 

2 Cited by Thierry, in Hist. Essays. Phil. ed. 84. 



206 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

observation, described the situation, politically, as he re- 
marked, that the operation of the Stamp Act, on colonial 
ideas, " would have been by sap ; " but the Townshend 
scheme " was attacking them by storm every day." ^ 

The father of the new acts, Charles Townshend, died 
before they went into effect ; and their execution devolved 
on Lord North, appointed chancellor of the exchequer. This 
character, so famous in American story, was thirty-hve years 
of age ; but this was not the time of his full entrance on the 
stage. The administration was living on the great name of 
the Earl of Chatham.^ The business of the colonies had 
become so large, that the office of Secretary of State for them 
was created, which was filled by Lord Hillsborough. He 
was bland, and full of fair professions, but constantly aimed 
to strengthen the prerogative. He was the channel of com- 
munication with the colonies. 

It was then said that " American liberty must be entirely 
of American fabric." ^ A new movement, as it was termed, 
began. The popular leaders enjoined the people to avoid 
mobs, confusions, tumults, — the terrible spirit of disorder 
that was a part of the action against the Stamp Act, and which 
was like the European popular action, — spasmodic, danger- 
ous, and ruinous. This advice was given, in line upon line, 
in the press.^ On the day the new acts went into effect, there 
was posted under" Liberty Tree," in Boston, a paper calling 
on the " Sons of Liberty " to rise and fight for their rights, 
and saying that they would be joined by legions. This 
incident drew from James Otis, the moderator of a meeting 
held in the town on that day, a spirited denunciation of mobs. 
He said, that, " were the burdens of the people ever so heavy, 
or their grievances ever so great, no possible circumstances, 

1 Knox's Extra-Official Papers, ii. 26. 

2 The king said this in a letter to the Earl of Chatham, dated Jan. 23, 1768. He 
was then in strict seclusion. 

8 Arthur Lee, in "Life of R. H. Lee," i. 62. The letter is dated London, 1767; 
but, as the " Fiirmer's Letters" are referred to, it should be 1768. 
4 Boston Gazette, Nov. 9 and 14, 1767. 



THE TOWNSHEND ACTS AND PUBLIC OPINION. 207 

though ever so oppressive, could be supposed sufficient 
to justify private tumults and disorders, either to their con- 
sciences before God, or legally before men ; that their fore- 
fathers, in the beginning of the reign of Charles I., for 
fifteen years together, were continually offering up prayers 
to their God, and petitions to their king for redress of griev- 
ances, before tliey would betake themselves to any forcible 
measures ; that to insult and tear eacli other in pieces was 
to act like madmen ; " ^ This speech was printed in the 
newspapers, and was heartily indorsed. " Our cause," it 
was said, " is a cause of the highest dignity : it is notliing 
less than to maintain the liberty with which Heaven itself 
has made us free. I hope it will not be disgraced in any 
colony by a single rash step. We have constitutional meth- 
ods of seeking redress, and they are the best methods." ^ 
The Whigs, with these views, entered upon the work of 
" defending the liberties of their common country." ^ Aim- 
ing to avoid any thing like insurrection, and repelling the 
idea of revolution, they unfurled their banner under the 
noble asgis of law. They based tlieir action on social order. 
They hoped to build up their cause on the foundation of an 
intelligent public opinion. This was a new and an Ameri- 
can method of political agitation. 

The Whigs, in this spirit, aimed at concert of action. 
They did not fail to profit by such union as was reached 
in the Stamp Act, and they sought opportunities to 
cement and perpetuate it. When the air was full of re- 
joicing on account of the repeal, a learned divine of 
Boston, Jonathan Mayhew, in a note addressed to James 
Otis, proposed that the Massachusetts assembly should send 
congratulatory letters to the other assemblies on the favor- 

1 Boston Evening Post, Nov. 23, 1767. The entire report of tliis speech is in 
" Liie and Times of Warren," 38. 

2 LettP- written by John Dickinson, and addressed to Otis, dated Dec. 7, 1767. 
Extracts were printed in the " Boston Gazette,"' Jan. 25, 1768. The entire letter is 
in ''Warren's History of the American War," i. 413. 

* Boston Gazette, Jan 25, 1768, — the beginning of Dickenson's Letter. 



208 THE EISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

able aspect of things, expressing warm friendship, and a 
desire to cultivate union among them by all practical meth- 
ods ; remarking, that tlie communion of colonies, lilce tlie 
communion of churches, might be of great use, and that 
on some future occasion union might be the only means of 
perpetuating their liherties.^ The benefit of keeping up a 
friendly correspondence among the patriots was urged in 
public meetings and in the press.^ Tlie appeals of the pop- 
ular leaders have an elevation of sentiment so common and 
so continuous, as to constitute a featnrc of the revolutionary 
struggle. Thus " The Farmer's Letters," addressed to " The 
American People," — imbued witli a sentiment of union 
— say, " You are assigned by Divine Providence, in the 
appointed order of things, the protector of unborn ages, 
whose fate depends on your virtue."^ 

The earliest movement, in reference to the new scheme, 
was a renewal of the non-importation agreement. At a town 
meeting held at Boston, Oct. 28, 1767, in which James Otis 
presided, statements were read to the effect, tliat one town, 
the past year, made tliirty thousand yards of cloth ; that 
Lynn turned out forty thousand pairs of women's shoes ; 
that a circle of agreeable ladies had agreed to lay aside 

1 This letter is dated " Lord's D;!}' Morning, June 8, 1766:" and commences, 
" Sir, — To a good man all time is holy enough, and none too holy to do good or to 
think upon it." It was printed by Mrs. Warren, in her "Plistorj' of American VVar," 
i. 416. 

2 " With respect to North America in general, it is our advice and instruction 
that you keep up a constant and friendly intercoiu'se with the other English govern- 
ments on the continent; that you conciliate divisions and differences, if any be now 
subsisting, or should herea^'ter arise; ever preferring their friendship and confidence 
to the demands of rigorous justice with lut them " — Boston Instructions to the Rep- 
resentatives in Massachusetts Gazette, May 29, 1766. 

8 These letters, by .John Diciiinson, appeared first in the " Pcnns3'lvania Chronicle 
and Universal Advertiser," printed in Philadelphia. Number one was printed Dec. 
2, 1767; number twelve, Feb. 15, 1768. They were copied into other journals, !ind 
widely circulated in every colony. They were printed also in pamphlet form in 
America and in London. Letters of thanks were sent to their author. Tims the 
town of Lebanon. Conn., April 11, 1768, congratulated him as one born for the most 
noble and exalted purpose, and as having erected a monument that would transmit 
a grateful remembrance of the " Farmer " to the latest posterity. — Pennsylvania 
Chronicle, May 9, 1768. 



THE TOWNSHEND ACTS AND PUBLIC OPINION. 209 

the use of ribbons: and a subscription was started to pro- 
mote economy, industry, and manufactures. The proceed- 
ings, under the heading " Save your money, and you save 
your country," were printed in the journals,^ and made 
a great noise in England. 

It was circulated in the newspapers, that, whenever 
" the cause of American freedom was to be vindicated," 
the province of Massachusetts Bay, " as it had liitherto 
done, must first kindle tlie sacred flame that must ilhimin- 
ate and warm the continent." ^ Its legislature came to- 
gether in its second session, Dec. 30, 1767, in the Town 
House, or State House,^ as it was then sometimes termed, — 
still standing at the head of State Street, then King Street. 
Several members of the Council and many of tlie House 
" appeared completely clothed in tlie manufacture of the 
country." * Thomas Gushing, of Boston, a mercliant of 
liberal culture, and a patriot always in favor of a moderate 
course, was the speaker ; and Samuel Adams, a poor man, 
a universally good character, and of rising influence as a 
popular leader, was the clerk. Among the members were 
Otis, whose brilliant intellect was entering its cloud ; and 



1 The proceeclinfjs were printed in the " Boston Gazette," Nov. 2, and are 
copied into the " Pennsylvania Chronicle", Nov. 11. They are in the " Gentleman's 
Magazine" for December, 1767, and elicited (p. 620) a violent piece, calling on 
parliament to declare the combination illegal. It is pronounced a " daring attack 
on our commerce;" and it is said, "The enterprises of the Americans are now- 
carried to such a point, that every moment we lose serves only to accelerate our 
perdition." This piece was copied by tlie American newspapers. Tlie excitement 
which the Boston Resolutions occasioned, elicited from Franklin the paper entitled 
'"Causes of the American Discontents" (see works of Franklin by Sparks, iv. 242), 
which had the motto " The waves never rise but when the winds blow." This was 
pr'nted in the " London Chronicle " of Jan. 7, 1768, in the " Pennsylvania Chronicle " 
of April 25, .nnd as a postscript to the collection of pipers entitled " The True Sen- 
timents of America." 

2 Boston Gnzette. .Ian 2.5, 1768. 

8 The papers of some of the colonics are dnted from " The State House." The 
petition of Delaware, Sept. 28, 1768, is so dated. 

^ Boston Gazette, Jan. 11, 1768. The issue of the 4th says, that the senior class 
at the University in Cambridge had '• unanimously agreed to take their degrees, 
next Commencement, dressed altogether in the manufactures of this country, — a 
resolution which reflects the highest honor on that seat of learning." . 

14 



210 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

John Hancock, a generous and steady patriot, whose per- 
sonal services and great wealth were freely given to th^ 
cause. James Warren, of lai'ge revolutionary fame, repre- 
sented the town of Plymouth. Joseph Hawley, of rare 
singleness of purpose and integrity, was sent from Nortli- 
ampton, and was the politician of the largest influence from 
the western part of the province. The list of members 
shows many who are held in grateful remembrance. 

On opening the sossioii. Governor Bernard summoned the 
members of the House to the council chamber, but in his 
address to them, did not refer to the new acts. They were, 
however, read in the House, and referred to a committee on 
the state of the province.^ They reported an elaborate letter 
written by Samuel Adams, to be sent to the agent of the 
colony in London, and intended for the ministers. During 
the discussion of it, running through several days, it was 
read eight times, and, having been amended, was adopted as 
embodying the sentiments of the House. This masterly pre- 
sentation of the American question is too long to admit of an 
abstract. It reproduced the old argument respecting taxa- 
tion. It claimed for the colonial asseml)lies, as the guardians 
of the rights and liberties of the people, the free exercise of 
powers of legislation within their limits as essential to secure 
to His Majesty'* subjects in America the benefits of the Con- 
stitution. It urged that, without this freedom, a legisla- 
tive body was incomprehensible, that there could be no 
essential difference between a legislature restricted and 
none at all ; and that it would bo a strange political phe- 
nomenon, sliould all laws, both of police and revenue, be 
made by a legislature at such a distance that the local cir- 
cumstances of the governed could not be known by it. The 
letter claimed that the colonists were equally entitled with 



1 On the first day of the session, Dec. 30, 1767, ordered, that Mr. Speaker, Col. 
Otis, Mr. Adams, .Major Ilawley, Mr. Otis, Mr. Hancock, Capt. Sheaffe, Col. BowerB, 
an 1 Mr. Dexter, be a committee to take under consideration the state of the province 
and report. — Journal. 



THE TOWNSHEND ACTS AND PUBLIC OPINION. 211 

all British subjects to the fundamental rules of the British 
Constitution as their grand security, and that these bounded 
and circumscribed the supreme legislature. Tested by 
tliese rules, the new acts were held to be unconstitutional. 
In asking for their repeal, the House disclaimed the most 
distant thought of independence. 

The same committee reported letters to several noblemen 
in England, and a petition to the king, prepared by Samuel' 
Adams. The most celebrated of these papers, the petition, 
was expressed in simple and beautiful terms. It contained 
the warmest sentiments of loyalty, duty, and affection ; 
glanced at the origin and growth of the colony ; spoke of 
the happiness of a people blessed with the rights of English- 
men ; and, recognizing the supreme legislative power in all 
cases that could consist with the fundamental rights of 
nature and the Constitution, it averred that the power 
claimed for parliament to raise a revenue when it was 
utterly impracticable for the colonists to be represented in 
it, would leave them only the name of free subjects.^ 

It was next proposed, in the spirit of the prevailing sen- 
timent of union, to inform the other assemblies of these 
measures. The House voted, Jan. 22, to assign a time 
to consider the expediency of writing to the assemblies of 
the other colonies with respect to the importance of join- 
ing in petitioning his majesty. This was earnestly debated, 
and the proposition was at first rejected, on the ground that 
this would be equivalent to the call of a congress. But the 

1 The papers adopted b\' the House soon appeared in the newspapers. The 
celebrated letter addressed to Dennis De Berdt, dated Jan. 12, 1768, is in the " Boston 
Gazette" of April 4, and " Pennsylvania Chronicle" of April 18; and it was printed 
in London by Thomas llollis, in a volume under the title of" The True Sentiments of 
America." See Wells's " Life of Adams," i. 172, on the authorship of it. The letter 
to the Earl of Shelburne, dated Jan. 15, is in the Boston papers of Mnrch 21; as is 
also the petition to the king, dated Jan. 20. The letter to the Mnrquis of Rocking- 
ham, dated .Ian. 22, is in the " Boston Gazette " of March 28. The letter to the Earl 
of Camden, dated Jan 29, is in the " Massachusetts Gazette" of April 4. The letter 
to the Earl of Chatham is in the " Boston Gazette " of April 7. The letter to Henry 
Seymour Conway, dated Feb. 13, is in the " Boston Post Boy " of March 28. The 
letter to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury is in the " Boston Post Boy," 
April 4. 



212 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

friends of the measure — and none were more indefatigable 
than Samuel Adams — nrged tliat it was no more tlian exer- 
cising the right of correspondence. At length the vote was 
reconsidered, and a committee was appointed to prepare a 
communication to be sent to the other colonies. In a week, 
Feb. 11, they reported a letter, drawn up by Samuel Adams, 
which was adopted. The speaker was directed to sign it, 
and send it to the several assemblies on the continent. 

This Circular Letter states that the House had taken into 
serious consideration the several acts of parliament and 
their consequences ; and, in the view that all possible care 
should be taken that the several assemblies should har- 
monize with each other, it freely communicated their mind 
to their sister colonies, on a common concern, in the same 
manner as they would be glad to receive in return the sen- 
timents of any similar assembly. Then the positions that 
had been taken, in the papers which had been adopted, were 
tersely recapitulated. The idea was disclaimed of being fac- 
tious, disloyal, or having any desire of independence ; and 
confidence was expressed that the other assemblies would be 
too generous to ascribe the letter to an ambition to dictate. 
The House said that they would consider it kind in them to 
point out any thing further which might be thought neces- 
sary, and that they acted in the belief that the united and 
dutiful applications of distressed Americans to the king, 
" their common head and father," would meet with his royal 
acceptance. The authors of this letter regarded it inno- 
cent, prudent, calculated to quiet the public mind, and to 
procure a reversal of an obnoxious policy. It was calm 
in its tone, imbued with a spirit of loyalty, respectful to 
sister colonies, and true to American ideas. ^ 

^ The. spirit in which the speaker signed this letter may be seen in his own words, 
in a letter dated '' Boston, July 13, 1708," and printed in the " American (Jazette," 
p. 67. The Circular Letter was printed in the " Boston Gazette," March 14, 1768; 
and was reprinted in the Boston papers of June It was copied by the newspapers in 
the other colonies. It is in the "' Pennsylvania Chronicle" of July 11. 

The "Boston Gazette" of Feb. 15, has an editorial relating the proceedings of 
the House of Representatives in which the Circular Letter is thus referred to: — 

" Their committee have reported a Letter . . . commimicating in decent terms their 



THE TOWNSHEND ACTS AND PUBLIC OPINION. 213 

The House, by a special committee, informed tho Gover- 
nor of the adoption of this letter, and stated tliat a copy of 
it would be laid before him as soon as a draft could be 
made, and copies also of other papers, if he should desire 
them. A few days after, he summoned the members into 
the council chamber, when, on proroguing tho House, 
he delivered a speech, in which he sharply censured them 
for their doings, saying there were men to whose being 
everlasting contention was necessary, but that time would 
soon pull the masks off those false patriots who were sacri- 
ficing their country to the gratification of their passions. He 
laid aside this arrogance, as he spoke to the council, whom 
he commended for what he termed their uniform and patri- 
otic conduct. 

The Circular Letter elicited gratifying replies. The New- 
Hampshire assembly, by their speaker, Peter Oilman, grate- 
fully acknowledged the communication, highly applauded 
its sentiments, regarded the union of all the colonies of the 
liighest importance, but said that the period they would be 
in session was so short, they could only express the hope 
their successors would pursue the method adopted by Mas- 
sachusetts ; and they prayed the Lord of the universe to 
avert the impending evil, make way for the establishment 
of British liberty, and quiet every colony in an enjoyment of 
all its civil and religious rights. The Flouse of Burgesses 
of Virginia, through their speaker, Peyton Randolph, ap- 
plauded the Massachusetts assembly for its attention to 
American liberty ; gave a summary of tlie sentiments em- 
bodied in the memorials they had adoj)ted ; characterized 
their local government as one under which the people had 
enjoyed the fruits of their own labor witii a serenity liberty 
only could impart ; not only disclaimed any intention of 
aiming at independence, but promised a cheerful acquics- 

.-entiments and proceedings, on this common concern; and to prevent the enemies 
of the colonies misrepresenting this measure, we are informed, t!ie House has ordered 
a copy of tlie last-mentioned letter to be transmitted to Mr. Berdt, to be by him 
produced as iiecesbity may require." 



214 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

cence in the authority of parliament to make laws for pre- 
serving a necessary dependence and for regulating the trade 
of the colonies ; and they not merely petitioned for a redress 
of grievances, but sent a circular to all the assemblies on 
the continent, inviting their concurrence. The New-Jersey 
assembly, by their speaker, Courtland Skinner, recognized 
the candor, spirit, and design of the Massachusetts circular; 
adopted the mode of action it suggested ; expressed a desire 
to keep up a correspondence, and to unite with the colonies, 
if necessary, in further supplications to His Majesty to re- 
lieve his distressed subjects, and, in their petition to the 
king, disclaimed any intention of denying a subordination 
to parliament, or dependence on the crown ; but earnestly 
averred that the most effectual way to strengthen the con- 
nection was by zealously striving to preserve in perfect vigor 
those sacred rights and liberties under the inspiring sanc- 
tion of which the colony had become populous, flourishing, 
and valuable to Great Britain. The Connecticut assembly, 
by their speaker, Zebulon West, viewed the Circular Letter 
as proceeding from a hearty concern for the just rights, the 
common interest, and welfare of the colonies ; regarded 
union in sentiment and practice as essential to success ; 
was desirous to cultivate the strictest friendship with the 
neighboring colonies, and with none more than Massachu- 
setts ; and was confident that the united and dutiful suppli- 
cations of the king's faithful and distressed subjects in 
America would meet with a kind and gracious reception. 
Three of these replies soon appeared in the newspapers.^ 

At this point in the communion of the colonies, the king 
appeared on the stage, and as a direct consequence of the 

1 The dates of the replies arc as follows: New-Hampshire assembly, Feb. 25, 
17G8, printed in the "Journals of the House;" Virginia, May 8, in the "Boston 
Post Boy," June 27 ; New-Jersey, May 9, in the " Post Boy," June 27 ; Connecticut, 
June 11, in "Post Boy" of June 27. Explanatorj'' letters yrere received from Alex- 
ander Wylly, speaker of the Georgia assembly, dated June 16; P. Manigault, 
speaker of the South-Carolina assembly, dated July 10; and Metcalfe Bowler, 
speaker of the Rhode-Island assembly, dated Aug. 5. These replies were cordial, 
and contained assurances that were subsequently made good. 



THE TOWNSHEND ACTS AND PUBLIC OPINION. 215 

course of the Tories. They represented that the Whigs 
meant to resist by force the execution of the revenue acts : 
in fact, that their real object was independence ; and that 
British troops were required to prevent an insurrection in 
Boston, which might extend through the colonies. Governor 
Bernard of Massachusetts was conspicuous in this bald mis- 
representation. He had the full confidence of Lord Hills- 
borough. He had also a relative at the head of the war 
department. Lord Barrington ; and the correspondence be- 
tween these two friends was voluminous and confidential, 
in which the progress of events in Boston was minutely 
described. Bernard characterized the Circular Letter as 
designed to pave the way for a confederacy, and calculated 
to inflame the continent ; and, presented in this light, it 
naturally alarmed the ministers. Lord Hillsborough (April 
15) laid it before the cabinet, where it was pronounced little 
better than an incentive to rebellion. The king, then giving 
unusual attention to American affairs, judged that the exi- 
gency required special measures ; and, without any regard to 
the limitations of law, it was determined that one royal order 
should require the Massachusetts assembly to rescind its 
Circular Letter, and that another order should require the 
other assemblies to treat it with contempt, — imposing the 
penalty of dissolution in case of non-compliance with these 
orders. " I think," a British official said, " this measure 
will bring matters to a crisis very speedily ; and if the col- 
onies see this countiy is in earnest, they will presently make 
their option, and take the part of peaceable subjects in fu- 
ture." ^ The monarchical office was the most powerful polit- 
ical machine in Europe. In the colonies the king's name was 
a tower of strength ; and hence this entrance of George III. 
into the arena added vastly to the interest and importance 
of the American question. 

Meantime, the people of Massachusetts had elected a new 
assembly, containing most of the members of the last, and 

1 Knox, in Grenville Papers, iv. 298. 



216 THE EISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

nearly all the popular leaders. It convened when events — 
driftings toward revolution — were creating intense excite- 
ment in this colony, and attracting more and more the atten- 
tion of the other colonies. A British naval force was moored 
in Boston Harbor. It was the common report that an army 
was to be stationed in this town to overawe the citizens and 
execute the odious policy. The seizure of Americans by 
a press-gang from the ships, and of the sloop " Liberty," 
owned by Hancock, for a violation of the revenue laws, bred 
a riot. This occasioned one of those public meetings^ in 
the spirit of fidelity to the cause of liberty, and yet under 
the law, which henceforward characterized the revolutionary 
history of Boston and of Massachusetts. Governor Bernard, 
in this case, dealt with a distressed community in a spirit of 
candor and conciliation, for which he met with grateful ac- 
knowledgments. While doing this, he received a despatch 
from Lgrd Hillsborough, terming the Circular Letter of the 
last House inflammatory, tending to create unwarrantable 
combinations, and to excite unjustifiable opposition to the 
authority of parliament ; and containing the royal order for 
the assembly to rescind the resolution on which it was based, 
on the penalty of a dissolution in case of a refusal. Hence the 
Governor, June 21, sent to the House the following mes- 
sage : " I have His Majesty's orders to make a requisition to 
you, which I communicate in the very words in which I have 
received it. I must desire you to take it into immediate 
consideration, and I assure you, that your resolution thereon 
will have most important consequences to the province. I 
am myself merely ministerial in this business, having received 
His Majesty's instruction for all I have to do in it. I heart- 
ily wish that you may see how forcible the expediency of 
your giving His Majesty this testimonial of your duty and 
submission, is at this time. If you should think otherwise, I 
must nevertheless do my duty." The Governor sent only 

1 The "Life and Times of Joseph Warren," chap, i v., has a relation of the occur- 
rences in Boston on this occasion. 



THE TOWNSHEND ACTS AND PUBLIC OPINION. 217 

the part of Hillsborough's despatch containing the requisi- 
tion. This message placed George III. in a novel position 
before an American assembly. 

There was no debate at this time ; but the news of the 
message spread through the community, and in the after- 
noon, as the gallery ^ and both of the doors of the hall were 
open.2 There were present great numbers of the citizens. 
The message was read again ; when James Otis took the 
floor, and spoke two hours on public affairs. He named 
the king with respect, but arraigned with great severity the 
course of the ministry. He reviewed the past, extolled the 
times of the Commonwealth, and eulogized Cromwell. He 
cast the political horoscope, prophesied of the future, and 
hoped there would be another congress. He portrayed the 
character of the members of parliament, dwelling on the 
unfitness of many for their places. " We have now before 
us," he said, " a letter from Lord Hillsborough. Prom the 
style, one would conclude it to be the performance of a school- 
boy. They are pleased in their wonderful sagacity to find 
fault with our Circular Letter. I defy the whole legislature 
of Great Britain to write one equally correct." He shewed 
that it would be impossible for the new House to rescind a 
measure of the previous House, which had been executed ; 
and he exclaimed, " When Lord Hillsborough knows that 
we will not rescind our acts, he should apply to parliament 
to rescind theirs. Let Britain rescind her measures, or the 
colonies are lost to her for ever." ^ He spoke in an impas- 

1 On the motion of Otis, June 3, 1766, a gallery was opened "for such as wished 
to hear the deb.ates; " the first instance, Tudor remarks ("Life of Otis," 253), ot 
authorized publicity being given to legislative deliberations. A writer in the " New 
Hampshire Gazette," cited in the "Boston Gazette," Dec. 15, 1766, expressed his 
satisfaction at the opportunity he had of hearing the debates in the i\Iassachusett3 
assembly, and hoped that the people of that colony "would soon have the same 
happy privilege of galleries." 

2 Bernard's letter, .July 16. 

8 Bernard's letters of June 28 and July 16. The journal of the House, however, 
says, that, in the morning, the consideration of the message and papers was refeiTed 
to the next day at ten o'clock. Bernard's letters are very minute. He says that he 
went every day to the council chamber, and his iriends reported to him what was 
said and done in the House. 



218 THE KISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

sioned vein, and then Ids tongue was as a flame of fire. This 
speech was one of the masterly efforts of the great orator. 

The question occupied tlie minds of the House for nine 
days, during which the members were guided by a special 
committee,^ and were inspired by the answers received from 
the other assemblies. The Governor, in a second message, 
communicated the threat to dissolve the House in case of 
non-compliance ; in a third, he pressed a decision ; in a 
fourth, he declined to grant a recess. He passed much time 
in the council chamber, watching the proceeduigs. On the 
30th of June, the speaker informed the House that the com- 
mittee were ready to report, when the gallery was ordered 
to be cleared ; the door was locked and notice was sent to 
the council that the House was entering on a debate of im- 
portance. ' The door-keeper was directed not to call any 
member out, nor to let any messenger come in, until further 
orders. No reporter described the scene in this secret ses- 
sion. Thomas Gushing was in the chair, and Samuel Adams 
was the clerk. A letter addressed to Lord Hillsborough was 
read. It stated the origin and purpose of the Circular Let- 
ter; that the House was the representative of the com- 
mons of the province, as the British House was of the Brit- 
ish commons ; that perhaps no requisition from the throne, 
of the nature then made, had been known since the Revolu- 
tion ; and it expressed the hope that a petition to the king 
might not be deemed inconsistent with the British con- 
stitution, nor a Letter, acquainting their fellow-subjects 
with what they had done, be judged an inflammatory pro- 
ceeding. The letter was read twice, adopted, and ordered 
to be sent to Lord Hillsborough. Then the question was 
put, " Whether this House will rescind the resolution of tlie 
last House which gave birth to their Circular Letter to the 
several houses of representatives and burgesses of the other 

1 The committee consisted of Mr. Speaker, Mr. Otis, Mr. Adams, Mr. Hancock, 
Col. Otis, Col. Bowers, Mr. Spooner, Col. Warren, and Mr. Saunders. Bernard 
(letter, July 16) says, they were "entirely of the most violent heads of the fac- 
tion." 



THE TOWNSHEND ACTS AND PUBLIC OPINION. 219 

colonies on this continent." The vote was taken by yeas 
and nays, and was printed in the newspapers in the order 
of counties. Suffolk led in the negative, with the names of 
Otis, Gushing, Adams, and Hancock ; Middlesex, with Bar- 
rett, subsequently in command in the fight at Concord, Pres- 
cott, and Gardner, the first treasurer in the provisional 
government ; Essex, with the familiar names of Greenleaf, 
Phillips, and Gerrish ; Worcester, with Bigelow, distin- 
g-uished in civil walks, the Whitcombs, for service in the 
field, and Ward, the future commander of the American 
forces ; Plymouth, with White, the Secretary of the Com- 
mittee of Safety, and James Warren, the President of the 
Provincial Congress; Cumberland (Maine), with Preble; 
and other counties, with names held in grateful remem- 
brance for large revolutionary services. Ninety-two an- 
swered nay, and among them were several who usually 
voted on the side of the administration ,i while only seven- 
teen answered yea. The House then adopted an answer to 
the messages of the Governor, saying that they regarded 
the Circular Letter moderate and innocent, respectful to the 
authority of parliament, and dutiful to the king ; that they 
entertained sentiments of reverence and affection for both ; 
that, should they ever depart from these sentiments, they 
must stand " self-condemned as unworthy the name of Brit- 
ish subjects descended from British ancestors, intimately 
allied and connected in interests and inclination with their 
fellow-subjects, the commons of Great Britain ; " that the 
resolution required to be rescinded was not then executory, 
but executed ; that answers had been received to the Letter, 
which were in the public papers, and the world must judge 
of their proposals and purposes ; that they, as subjects, 
claimed the rights of petition jointly and severally, of cor- 
respondence and of having a free assembly, and that the 

1 Bernard says (letter, June 28), "Among the majority were many members 
who were scarce ever known upon any other occasion to vote against the govern- 
ment side of a question." 



220 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

charge of treason was hurled at some of the best blood of 
the province. After stating the vote refusing to comply 
with the royal command, they concluded : " In all this we 
have been actuated by a conscientious, and finally a clear 
and determined sense of duty to God, to our king, our coun- 
try, and to our latest posterity ; and we most ardently wish 
and humbly pray that in your future conduct your Excellency 
may be influenced by the same principles." ^ This action 
was in the spirit of fidelity to self-government manifested by 
a former Massachusetts assembly when it triumphantly re- 
sisted an illegal commission of Charles 11.^ 

The Governor, early in the day, went to the council cham- 
ber to watch the proceedings of the House ; but he says they 
kept locked up all the morning. The council were in ses- 
sion when the special committee appeared bearing the noble 
answer of the House, which was read ; when the Governor 
immediately summoned all the representatives before him. 
" A fracas occurred," he says. " One of the council expos- 
tulated with me upon my calling up the House whilst the 
council was engaged in business, and was so indecent as to 
appeal to the House. I silenced him. Another gentleman 
interrupted. I stopped him also and proceeded to the pro- 
rogation."^ The Governor thus closed the session. He 
dissolved the General Court the next day by Proclamation, 
which was formally published by the sheriffs in every county. 

1 "Boston Gazette," July 4, 1768, has the answer. The committee who carried 
it to the council were Col. Bowers, Major Fry, Mr. Greenleaf, Col. Saltonstall, and 
Brigadier Preble. 

2 See above, page 59. George Grenville, in the House of Commons, termed the 
king's order for the House to rescind the Circular Letter an unwarrantable stretch of 
power — " Boston Evening Post," May 1, 1769. This was the view of Burke and 
Weddirburne. — Bancroft, vi 232 

3 Bernard, July 1, 1768. His letters stated that the patriots were inaugurating 
a rebellion. The assembly petitioned the king for the removal of Bernard. The 
petition was reported, June 28, by a committee consisting of "Mr. Adams, Mr. Otis, 
CoL Otis, and Mr. Hancock, and has the following: — 

" He has endeavored to persuade Your Majesty's ministers to believe that an inten- 
tion was formed, and a plan settled, in this, and the rest of your colonies, treasonablj 
to withdraw themselves from all connection with, and dependence upon, Great Britain 
and from their natural allegiance to Your Majesty's sacred person and government." 



THE TOWNSHEND ACTS AND PUBLIC OPINION. 221 

It was thus made known that the vital right of representa- 
tion was to be enjoyed only on the condition of a servile 
compliance with an arbitrary royal instruction. 

These proceedings created profound sensation in this 
colony and in other colonies. It was said that the question 
was the greatest which had ever occupied the attention 
of an American legislature ; that the brave and virtuous 
behavior of the assembly in the sacred cause of liberty and 
their country gave general satisfaction ; and that the vote 
not to rescind elicited as evident tokens of joy as were mani- 
fested on the fall of Louisburg or the conquest of Canada ; 
and that the "Illustrious Ninety-Two" was the toast in all 
companies. " May the same noble zeal," a New-Yorker 
wrote, " spread itself from town to town and colony to 
colony, till we become united as one man in this glorious 
resolution, — never to surrender our inherent rights and 
privileges." ^ 

And now the other royal order, requiring the assemblies 
not to notice the Massachusetts Circular Letter, appeared in 
the newspapers in a despatch sent by Lord Hillsborough to 
the Governor of Rhode Island. The despatch termed the 
Circular Letter an unwarrantable combination and a flagitious 
attempt to disturb the public peace, and the Governor was 
instructed to treat it with the contempt it deserved. Hills- 
borough recognized the proofs which the colony had repeat- 
edly given of reverence and respect for the laws and of faith- 
ful attachment to the constitution ; and he remarked that His 
Majesty expected it would give another proof by shewing 
proper resentment at that unjustifiable attempt to revive 

1 Letter dated New York, July 14, 17G8. The "Boston Evening Post," July 4, 
says : — 

" We cannot too much admire and commend the conduct of our House of assembly. 
Though threatened with immediate annihilation unless they complied with a requisition 
to rescind the resolution of a former House, they have, with a firmness and unanimity 
becoming the representatives of a wise and free people, asserted and maintained in- 
stead of giving up their rights and privileges; thus preferring the life of their country 
to their own political existence. The names, however, of the famous Ninety-Two will 
live for ever in the annals of America." 



222 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

those dissensions which had operated so fatally to the preju- 
dice of this kingdom and the colonies. This despatch ^ was 
first commented on as addressed only to the Governor of Rhode 
Island, but it proved to be a general circular to the govern- 
ors ; and it had the effect to put the king before all the assem- 
blies in the same attitude as he stood in towards the Massa- 
chusetts House. It provoked severe comment. The patriots 
termed it an attempt to prevent a colony from uniting with 
the continent in all legal endeavors for the removal of gen- 
eral grievances, and a fresh proof of the necessity of a com- 
mon union. They reasoned : " One would think that a joint 
supplication would meet with a more gracious reception than 
separate and different prayers. In public and joint worship 
of the Supreme Being, a special promise of a blessing is 
annexed. Is it not very strange, then, that the minister 
should attempt to make us believe that the recommendation 
of the principal government to the several legislatures in 
this remote part of the world, to join in beseeching our 
gracious Sovereign to consider and remove our griefs, is 
dangerous or factious ? He might as well persuade us, that, 
in a time of pestilence or famine, a united supplication to 
Heaven to remove the calamity was an unwarrantable com- 
bination." 2 

The assemblies now had before them the Circular Letters 
of Massachusetts and Virginia communicated by the speak- 
ers, and the king's requisition to treat the Letter of Massa- 
chusetts with contempt, communicated by the Royal Govern- 
ors, who enjoined a compliance with it in terms dictated by 
their judgment of their public duty. The action that fol- 
lowed strikingly illustrates the oneness of spirit and prin- 

1 This despatch, dated Whitehall, April 21, 1768, was printed in the "Boston 
Gazette," June 27, as a "copy of a Letter communicated to the Assembly of the 
Colony of Rhode Island on Saturday, the 18th inst." It was signed "Hills- 
borough." This despatch, the Circular Letter of February 11, the replies of 
Virginia, Connecticut, and New Jersey, and a relation of the proceedings of the 
Massachusetts House, are printed on the same day in one newspaper. 

2 "Boston Evening Post," July 18, 1768. The citation is from a spirited com- 
munication signed Roger Martyn, and dated Colony of Rhode Island, July 5, 1768. 



THE TOWNSHEND ACTS AND PUBLIC OPINION. 223 

ciple which animated the patriots and the development of 
the sentiment of union. 

In Maryland, Governor Sharpe assumed an arrogant tone 
as he laid the king's requisition before the assembly, saying, 
that he flattered himself, in case such a Letter as he described 
had been addressed to the House, they would confirm the 
favorable opinion His Majesty entertained of his Maryland 
subjects by taking no notice of it. The House, in a high- 
toned and admirable reply, said : " What we shall do upon 
this occasion, or whether in consequence of that Letter we 
shall do any thing, it is not our present business to com- 
municate to your Excellency ; but of this be pleased to be 
assured, that we cannot be prevailed on to take no notice 
of, or to treat with the least degree of contempt, a Letter so 
expressive of duty and loyalty to the sovereign, and so 
replete with just principles of liberty ; and your Excellency 
may depend that, whenever we apprehend the rights of the 
people to be affected, we shall not fail boldly to assert and 
steadily endeavor to maintain and support them, always 
remembering, what we could wish never to be forgot, that by 
the bill of rights it is declared, ' That it is the right of the 
subject to petition the king, and all commitments and prose- 
cutions for such petitioning are illegal.' " The House said, 
in an answer to the Massachusetts Circular, that they felt 
obliged by a candid and free communication of sentiment by 
a sister colony on a point so interesting to the whole ; that 
they coincided exactly with the opinions expressed as to the 
consequences of the new acts of parliament ; and were per- 
suaded of the necessity of harmonizing as much as possible 
in public measures for redress.^ 

In South Carolina, Governor Montagu enjoined the as- 
sembly to treat with contempt any letter or paper that 
appeared to have the smallest tendency to sedition. The 
assembly assured his Excellency, that, should a communica- 

1 The Reply of IMarj'land, dated June 24, is in the Boston papers of July 11, 
1768; also Gov. Sharpe' s message and the answers of the assembly. 



224 the" rise of the republic. 

tion of such a character be laid before them, they would 
treat it with the contempt it deserved. The Governor then, 
in a message, specified the Circular Letter of Massachusetts, 
already before them, as of factious tendency. A committee, 
composed of such eminent men as Gadsden, Laurens, 
Rutledge, Lynch, and Pinckney, reported resolves declaring 
the circulars of Massachusetts and Virginia replete with 
duty and loyalty to His Majesty, respect for the parliament, 
affection for the mother-country, tender care for the preser- 
vation of the rights of His Majesty's subjects, and founded 
upon undeniable constitutional principles. Twenty-six mem- 
bers voted for these resolves. At eight o'clock the same 
evening, the Governor, by beat of drum, dissolved the 
assembly, when the general toast became, " The Unanimous 
Twenty-Six who would not recede from the Massachusetts 
Circular Letter." The speaker, in the name of the House, 
sent an answer to the Massachusetts assembly, courteously 
thanking them for their communication to their fellow-sub- 
jects and sufferers ; and, transmitting the journal of the pro- 
ceedings which caused their own dissolution, remarked, that 
the record must convince the impartial world that the House 
had acted with duty and affection to His Majesty, and at the 
same time had supported with firmness the rights they held 
under the Constitution.^ 

The assembly of Georgia was composed of twenty-five 
members, and eighteen were stanch Whigs. When the 
circulars of Massachusetts and Virginia were laid before 
the commons, they resolved that these circulars were not 
of a factious tendency, but were calculated to promote a 

1 The reply of South Carolina is dated Nov. 21, and is in the "Boston Gazette " 
of Jan. 9, 17G9. The resolutions and other papers were printed in the issue of the 
2d of January. The committee to petition the king were Capt. Gadsden, Mr. Lynch, 
and Mr. Rutledge. The "Gazette" says: "The assembly of South Carolina is 
pleased to say that it (Circular Letter) is 'founded on undeniable constitutional prin- 
ciples;' if so, it will be difficult to make it appear that it is calculated to encourage 
opposition to and a denial of the (just) authority of Parliament, which is always cir- 
cumscribed by the Constitution." 



THE TOWNSHEND ACTS AND PUBLIC OPINION. 225 

justifiable union of sul)jccts, who felt aggrieved, in law- 
ful and laudable ways to obtain redress, and that they 
originated in a commendable and tender attachment to the 
natural rights of the American colonies. Governor Wright 
in vain warned them that this action tended to independence, 
and that this would bring ruin on America. They adopted 
a reply to the Massachusetts Circular, in which they entirely 
approved of the method it suggested for obtaining a redress 
of common grievances, and of the course of communicating 
an account of those measures to the other colonies. The 
arrogant tone of the Governor's messages and his dissolution 
of the House elicited severe comment from the press. ^ 

In Rhode Island, the asseml^ly, on receiving the Circular 
Letter, proceeded to act in accordance with its suggestions 
by preparing petitions. A letter from the speaker, in reply, 
gave a strong assurance that the assembly highly approved 
of the Massachusetts House, and thought their measures 
were worthy of a free people and perfectly consistent with 
that loyalty to His Majesty and regard for the British Con- 
stitution which had always distinguished the province.^ 

In Pennsylvania, the asseml)ly considered the acts of par- 
liament, and gave instructions to their agents in London to 
unite with the agents of the other colonies in efforts to 
effect their repeal. On receiving the Circular Letter, the 
assembly directed it to be entered on their journals. When 
the royal requisition to treat it with contempt was laid be- 
fore them, wilh the declaration that the Governor, in case 
of refusal, was commanded to dissolve them, they resolved 
that by their charter they had the right to sit on their 
own adjournments, that the Governor had no right to dis- 
solve; them, and that they had an undoubted right to corre- 

1 The reply of Georgia is dated Dec. 24, 1768, and is in the "Boston Gazette" 
of March 6, 1769. Governor "Wright's message and the resolves are in the "Massa- 
chusetts Gazette," Feb. 13. The " Gazette" of Feb. 6 savs, that Wright's speech 
was as extraordinary as any speech that had appeared, with one exception. 

2 The petition of Rhode Islajid to the king is in the "Boston Post Boy," May 15, 
1769. 

15 



226 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

spond with the representatives of the freemen of any of the 
colonies in America. They petitioned the king for a redress 
of grievances. A large public meeting in Philadelphia 
declared in favor of a cordial union of sentiment and meas- 
ures with the other colonies, on which they said the happi- 
ness of the whole depended. ^ 

In Delaware, the assembly asserted the right of corre- 
spondence, expressed their intention to co-operate with the 
other colonies, and, in a petition to the king, affirmed that 
if the British parliament could enforce obedience to every 
act of theirs imposing taxes, and deprive the assemblies of 
the power of legislation for differing with them in opinion 
in matters of legislation, the colonies would have not the 
shadow of liberty left.^ 

In New York, the freemen of the city, in a letter addressed 
to their representatives, regarded the despatch of Hillsbor- 
ough, inhibiting the assemblies from answering the Circular 
Letter, as the most daring insult that was ever offered to 
any free legislative body ; entreated them to answer the Let- 
ter in a respectable manner ; and said that, as the unanimity 
it recommended to the colonies was their only bulwark and 
defence, any attempts to intimidate them from so glorious a 
purpose ought to be treated with the contempt and just in- 
dignation which they could not but excite in the minds of 
virtuous representatives of a free people. The assembly 
sent petitions to the king and the lords, and a remonstrance 
to the commons. It adopted a reply to the Circular Letter, 
in which it applauded the Massachusetts House for its atten- 
tion to American liberty ; and, in resolves, it declared that 
it had an undoubted right to correspond and consult with 
any of the neighboring colonies, or with any of His Majesty's 

1 Gordon Hist. Penn., 451-456. The proceedings of the public meeting of July 
30 are in the "Boston News Letter," Aug. 15, 1768. The petition and memorial to 
king and parliament, dated Sept. 22, 1768, are in the "Massachusetts Gazette," 
Feb. 16, 1769. 

2 Tlie petition of Delaware to the king is dated §tate House, Oct. 28, 1768, and 
was copied into tlie "Gentleman's Magazine" for 1769, p. 29. 



THE TOWNSHEND ACTS AND PUBLIC OPINION. 227 

subjects in any part of his dominions ; and it chose a aom- 
mittce of correspondence.^ 

The North Carolina assembly returned a hearty answer 
to the Circular Letter, saying they were extremely obliged 
for it, should ever be ready to unite firmly with their sister 
colonies in every constitutional measure for the redress of 
grievances, cultivate the strictest harmony and friendship 
with their assemblies and interchange political sentiment. 

When this patriotic letter was printed, it was said that 
the colonies were no longer disconnected from each other, 
but formed one body and were possessed by a common sen- 
sation.2 The people manifested their approval of the doings 
of their representatives by votes of thanks, by joyful demon- 
strations and re-elections. County meetings and town meet- 
ings called for union, for a continuance of correspondence, and 
for a general congress, — in some instances towns pledging 
life and fortune in support of their American brethren.^ In 

1 The reply of the assembly of New York, no date, the resolutions, and Governor 
Moore's message, are in "Boston Gazette" of Jan. 16, 1769. The reply is signed 
by Phillip Livingston. The petition to the House of Lords, dated Dec. 31, 1768, has 
the following: " That our colony legislatures are so numerous, is owing to the pleas- 
ure of the crown ; and let it be remembered that the parliament stood by and saw 
their creation and rise without intimating the least disapprobation; nor was the 
present claim of the commons ever hinted till that melancholy case which gave birth 
to that fatal act which has proved so destructive of the general repose." 

2 The reply of North Carolina, dated Nov. 10, 1768, is in the " Boston Evening 
Post" of May 15, 1769, accompanied by the following remark: "The above letter 
completes the answers to our Circular Letter. The colonies, no longer disconnected, 
fonn one body ; a common sensation possesses the whole ; the circulation is complete, 
and the vital fluid returns from whence it was sent out " 

3 The town of Lebanon, Conn , on the 26th of September, 1768, expressed a 
hearty union with their brethren of Boston, and said that thej' would consider an 
attack on their liberties "in the same light as though we ourselves were the imme- 
diate sufferers; and, with a determinate, unalterable resolution and firmness, we 
agree to assist and support our American brethren at the expense of our lives and 
fortunes, should their welfare, which is so intimately blended with our own, demand 
the sacrifice." These resolves are attested by William Williams, town clerk, 
"Pennsylvania Chronicle," Oct. 17, 1768. The town of New London instructed its 
representative to take tlie most effectual measures to keep up a union with all the 
neighboring colonies. — Ibid.', Oct. 24. The town of Windham, Conn., instructed its 
representatives, Oct. 10, to move for measures to bring about a general congress 
from the several English governments upon the continent. — Ibid.. Oct. 31, 1768. 



228 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

New York, the assemblymen, wlio had distinguished them- 
selves by " supporting the rights and liberties of their coun- 
try," were escorted through Broadway by a vast concourse 
with music and banners, and saluted by huzzas, — the 
Daughters of Liberty signifying their approval from the 
windows.^ In Massaclmsetts, a convention of delegates 
iVom the towns, on the call of the selectmen, met in Faneuil 
Hall. It was a fine representation of the intelligence and 
patriotism of the province. Though the rash spirits were 
ready to rush to arms and oppose by force the troops ordered 
to be stationed in Boston, when they should arrive, yet they 
were wisely controlled, and the convention simply gave to 
public opinion its most august form. The general approval 
of the Circular Letter and the growing spirit of union filled 
the hearts of the Boston patriots with joy ; so that Cooper 
and Adams said it was the most glorious day they ever 
saw. 

This political action kept remarkably true to social order, 
carried on under the banner of law, was an unusual spec- 
tacle in the political world. England had not attained to 
the right of public meeting or the freedom of the press or 
publicity in the law-making body. In France, for a century 
and a half the people had not appeared on the public stage ; 
and in Germany there was but a glimmer here and there 
of free discussion of political measures. In the colonies. 
Whig and Tory regarded this embodiment of public opinion 
as a new and powerful political agency. The Tory feared 
it more than he did the greatest disorders ; for he saw that 
the sentiment thus put forth on the nature of government 
very often met with the approbation of the body of the peo- 
ple, and could not be counteracted.^ The Whig, on subse- 

1 The relation says the brilliant appearance of the ladies at the windows, the 
number of principal inhabitants who graced the procession, and the regularity and 
good order with which the whole was conducted, exhibited one of the finest and 
most agreeable sights ever seen in this city. — Boston I'ost Boy, Feb. 17, 17G8. 

2 Tlionias Hutcliinson to Lord Hillsborough, Oct. lit, 17G8. 



THE TOWNSHEND ACTS AND PUBLIC OPINION. 229 

quently revolving the steps of progress towards the Revolu- 
tion, viewed the spark in every American that blazed in the 
public meeting as " that almost divine spirit that evidenced 
the approach of an independent and free republic in 
America." ^ 

At this time society was alive with politics. Two num- 
bers now play a conspicuous part in private and public life : 
Forty-Five, the number of the " North Briton " which occa- 
sioned the arbitrary action in England against the press, and 
Ninety-Two, that of the Massachusetts vote against rescinding 
the Circular Letter. " Forty-Five " for years had been 
used in England to symbolize liberty. When the Ameri- 
cans in London heard of the action of the Massachusetts 
assembly, their favorite toast became : " May the unrescind- 
ing Ninety-Two be for ever united in idea with the glorious 
Forty-Five." ^ These talismanic numbers were combined in 
endless variety in the colonies. Ninety-two patriots at the 
festival would drink forty-five toasts. The representative 
would have forty-five or ninety-two votes. The ball would 
have ninety-two jigs and forty-five minuets. The Daugh- 
ters of Liberty would, at a quilting party, find their 
garment of forty-five pieces of calico of one color and 
ninety-two of another. Ninety-two Sons of Liberty would 
raise a flag-staff forty-five feet high. At a dedication of a 
Liberty Tree in Charleston, S.C, forty-five lights hung on 
its branches, forty-five of the company bore torches in 
the procession, and they joined on the march in honors to 
the Massachusetts Ninety-Two. At the festival, forty-five 
candles lighted the table and ninety-two glasses were used 
in drinking the toasts ; and the President gave as a senti- 
ment : " May the ensuing members of the assembly be 
unanimous, and never recede from the resolutions of the 
Massachusetts Ninety-Two." The Sons of Liberty of Massa- 
chusetts, in their celebrations, toasted " The assemblies on 

1 Boston Gazette, Jan. 27, 1777. 

2 Boston News Letter, Jan. 26, 1769. 



230 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

this vast and rapidly populating continent, who treated a 
late haughty and merely ministerial mandate with all that 
contempt it so justly deserves." ^ 

The proceedings growing out of the Circular Letter are 
certainly remarkable. The action of the king is in the 
spirit of Louis XIV,, who, in his hunting dress and his 
great boots, with a whip in his hand, entered the Frencli 
Parliament, saying: "The mischievous consequences of your 
assemblies are well known. I therefore order this, which is 
met to discuss my edict, to be now at an end." ^ The action 
of the assemblies is that of freemen knowing their privileges 
and duties. They concurred in a spirited assertion of the 
inherent rights of political discussion, of free interchange 
of thought, of an untrammelled legislature, — in a word, of 
their right to enjoy the national heritage of English law, 
not merely for themselves, but for their posterity ; and with 
the thought, as an inspiration, that they were acting not 
merely for their country, but for humanity. They asked 
that their municipal freedom and self-government, which 
were felt to be fountains of a rich public life, might be 
spared from the benumbing influences of centralization ; and 
thus that the public liberty developed on American soil, out 
of the roots of a grand historic past, might be respected as 
a sacred possession. This was the sum of their prayer to 
the Sovereignty ; or, in words often used, to the mother-coun- 
try. The tone of affection in which they addressed her is 
as that of children, conscious of, and grateful for, the benefi- 
cent influences which the venerable parent casts around 
them as an invuliieraljle shield. 

The memorials and petitions were delivered by the agents 
of the colonies into the hands of Lord Hillsborough. Ow- 

1 The following is one of the paragraphs that went the rounds of the newspapers: 
"America seems to have been very early concerned in the numbers 92 and 45. It 
was discovered in fourteen hundred and 92; and the inhabitants of San Salvador 
(the first land discovered) visited Admiral Columbus in their canoes, with 45 per- 
sons in each." 

2 Voltaire's Age of Louis XIV., ii. 2. 



THE TOWNSHEND ACTS AND PUBLIC OPINION. 231 

ing to various causes not needed to be dwelt upon here, rea- 
soning which seemed conclusive, and loyalty urged with a 
fervid sincerity, proved of no avail. The petitions, it was 
said, were from a distempered and a delirious people. Some 
did not reach the royal ear. Some met with cold neglect. 
All were thrown in the faces of the colonists. The misrep- 
resentations of unscrupulous politicians working for selfish 
ends, or of conservatives jealous of the republican idea, out- 
weighed the noble appeals of millions of loyal subjects.^ 

The proceedings in Massachusetts attracted in England 
the greatest attention, elicited the severest comment, and, 
because a military force had been ordered to Boston to sup- 
port the stand of the administration, created the greatest 
solicitude. The step of the assembly, in inviting union, 
was peculiarly obnoxious. Lord Mansfield thought its mem- 
bers ought to be summoned to England to account for their 
conduct. The king, on opening parliament, characterized 
the action of Boston as a subversion of the Constitution and 
evincing a disposition to throw off dependence on Great 
Britain. The indictment against the colonies was presented 
in sixty papers laid before parliament. Both Houses de- 
clared that the proceedings of the Massachusetts assembly 
in opposition to the revenue acts were unconstitutional, and 
derogatory to the rights of the crown and the parliament ; 
that the Circular Letter tended to create unlawful combina- 
tions ; that the call of a convention by the selectmen of 
Boston was proof of a design of setting up an independent 
authority ; and both Houses proposed to transport the orig- 
inators of the obnoxious proceedings to England for trial 
and condign punishment under the cover of an obsolete 
act of Henry VHL^ Some in England denounced this 

1 A spirited piece copied into the "Boston Gazette " of May, 22, 1769, from the 
" Jlaiyland Gazette " of May 4, says "that the acts and misrepresentations of men 
La office have had greater weight than the humble and dutiful petitions and remon- 
strances of all the colonics, and the cries of four millions of loyal subjects." 

2 A copy of what was termed the substance of the Resolves passed by the House 
of Lords was printed in the " Boston Gazette " of March 20, 1769. The newspapers 
also printed the Act of Henry VIII., wliich was said to extend to America. 



232 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

action as in the spirit of despotism. It was said that the 
soberest men began to be alarmed ; that they ruminated on 
the scenes of the last century ; ^ and that the bloody axe of 
Henry VIII. had been scoured up and whetted for the 
necks of the poor Americans.^ The momentous question 
of England and her colonies was the subject of diplomatic 
correspondence, and was the talk in Madrid, in Paris, and 
at every court in Europe.^ 

The king's speeches, the parliamentary documents, and 
the debates and a flood of letters circulating broadcast in 
the American newspapers, revealed the hot temper of Eng- 
land, and filled the colonies with indignation. Tory officials 
added to the bitterness by calling the Whigs deceivers and 
hypocrites, who said they only opposed an administration 
when they aimed at independence, — who professed loyalty, 
but were plotting rebellion. This charge was a severe strain 
on the nerves of honest men. A single sentence will show 
how their muscles quivered as they met the insulting allega- 
tion. " It is enough to make a man's bones crack that, 
when the manly, fair, dispassionate arguments of the colo- 
nists in support of their rights and privileges remain totally 
unanswered, every mushroom upstart and petty officer of tlie 
revenue should cry out rebels and traitors."* The stir was 
so general, the passions were so roused, and the Whigs were 
so unanimous, that it was said in the press: " Throughout the 
wide extended settlements of America there is hardly to be 
found an American who is not determined to die a free- 
man." 

The administration determined to make an example of 
Massachusetts, as the ring-leading province in political mis- 
chief, by transporting its popular leaders to England to be 
tried for their lives in the king's bench. Such was the pur- 

1 Letter from London in "Boston Evening Post," June 20, 1769. 

2 "London Public Advertiser," Jan. 15, 1769, copied into "Boston Evening 
Post" of Aug. 21. 

8 Bancroft, vi. 182. ■* Boston Gazette, June 20, 17G9. 



THE TOWNSHEND ACTS AND PUBLIC OPINION. 23Ji 

port of an elaborate despatch whicli Lord Hillsborough sent 
to Governor Bernard, directing an inquiry to be instituted 
into the conduct of any persons who had committed any 
overt act of resistance to the laws. This step was the occa- 
sion of a flood of reports contained in letters printed in 
the newspapers.! Thus a great issue was created that 
affected all the colonies; for the proposed action touched 
the individual unit of society. Because this was man, it 
had rank and position on American soil which power was 
bound to respect. The word now was that Massachusetts 
or Boston represented a common cause and ought to be 
sustained.^ 

There was no adequate step taken to meet the threatened 
aggression until the House of Burgesses of Virginia con- 
vened in May. This colony, in opposing the administration, 
was co-equal with Massachusetts in guilt or in merit ; but 
while the bayonet was pointed at the one, blandishment was 
devised for the other, — it being a cardinal object of the 
government to divide the colonies, and thus paralyze their 
efforts. ]\Iany years had elapsed since a governor had re 
sided in Virginia ; and the selection of Lord Botetourt, with 
the understanding that he should live in the colony, it was 
supposed would be so pleasing that it was termed a measure 
for reconcilino- America.^ He was fresh from the closet of 



1 Boston Gazette, April 17, 17C9. 

2 The following fi-om the "Boston Evening Post," April 3, 1769, wUl give an 
idea of matter circulated in the newspapers : — 

"Williamsburg, Va., Feb. 23. Extract from a London letter dated Nov. 9, 1768. 
During the debate in the House of Commons, on the king's speech, doctrines were 

mentioned tli.it would set America in flames, if they were admitted, by N th, 

C rl, and B n. These were to govern America by military force, seize Otis 

(whose name was fi-equently mentioned) and all the leading men in Boston, and 
everywhere else, who opposed their measures, bring them here and hang them. The 
Ministry are violent against us. . . . I think all America should be swallowed up 
in an eartlujuake, if they do not stand by Boston; for if that fall they will in a short 
time: they must share the same fate. And let this be the American political creed, 
that a firm, steady, and determined union, and constitutional opposition, will be the 
surest safeguard from any violence from hence.". 

8 Whately, in Grenville Papers, iv. 331. 



234 THE EISE OP THE KEPUBLIC. 

the king, where he had been a groom of the bed-chamber, 
and though characterized by Junius as a cringing, bowing, 
sword-bearing courtier, yet was urbane, and as governor 
evinced good sense, was really friendly to the colony, and 
won the general good-will. His speech to the Burgesses 
was complimentary, but no more than just to their loyalty, 
and contained assurances of the royal favor. A reply in the 
same spirit was so satisfactory to the Governor, that, in a 
rejoinder, he said that he could not wish a word of it altered. 
He was so complaisant as, in the course of two days, to 
receive at his table, with an elegant hospitality, all the Bur- 
gesses. Though he executed firmly the order of his supe- 
riors, he managed to retain the good-will of the Virginians to 
the day of his death ; and they erected a monument to his 
memory. 

The Burgesses included in their ranks illustrious men; 
for Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, Peyton Randolph, 
Archibald Carey, and Washington, were of their number ; all 
of whom were in former assemblies. Thomas Jefferson, at 
the age of twenty-six, was a member for the first time. He 
fitted for college in the classic schools of two Episcopal 
clergymen ; had two years' training in Williams and Mary 
and read law with George Wythe, who was his friend through 
life and introduced him to the bar. He took an office in 
Williamsburg, soon had a large and growing practice, and 
attained high rank in tire profession he loved. His manners 
were elegant, and his conversation was fascinating. He had 
hunted on his native hills, travelled as far north as New 
York, and had met Elbridge Gerry, of Boston. He was a 
hard student in the fields of literature and science, and 
already was a philosopher and a man of the world. He was 
of so lovable a nature that his family and intimate friends 
seemed to idolize him. His uncommon legal erudition 
broadened rather than narrowed his mind. He drew from 
the wells of the noble parliamentarians of the age of the 
Commonwealth, became a disciple of the republican school, 



THE TOWNSHEND ACTS AND PUBLIC OPINION. 285 

and had a living faith in its idea. He also had a faith in 
humanity that never wavered. He aimed to secure for it 
law that should deal out equal and exact justice to all men, 
and he sought to lift all men up to their native dignity by 
life-long labor in the cause of education. His fidelity in 
applying principle appears in his courageous and wise work 
in early assailing the laws of primogeniture, entails, and 
the established church. This fidelity, with practical states- 
manship, carried him to the head of a powerful party who 
gave him their love and confidence. He had the rare 
faculty of compressing political ideas into a small compass, 
which were accepted by a political school as its current plat- 
form ; and this enabled him to wield an influence over his 
countrymen larger and longer than fell to the lot of any 
other American. He began his remarkable career by intro- 
ducing into the House of Burgesses a bill to give the owners 
of slaves the right to manumit them, and by throwing him- 
self Avith ardor into the American cause, which from this 
time had the benefit of his felicitous pen. 

It was the report among the Burgesses that the Governor 
would be gratified if they would maintain silence on political 
questions. The popular leaders, however, had revolved the 
grave issue that had sprung up, and came prepared to play a 
great part. They adopted a series of resolves declaring that 
the sole right of imposing taxes on the inhabitants of the 
colony was constitutionally vested in the House of Burgesses, 
with the consent of the Council and His Majesty, or his 
Governor for the time being ; that it was an undoubted 
privilege to petition the Sovereign, and procure the concur- 
rence of the other colonies ; that all trials for treason ought 
to be conducted in the courts of the colony, and that the 
seizmg of any persons suspected of crime, and transporting 
them to places beyond seas, would deprive them of the ines- 
timable privilege of being tried by a jury from the vicinage ; 
and that a dutiful and loyal address be presented to His 
Majesty to beseech him to quiet the minds of the inhabitants 



236 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

of tliat colony, by averting the dangers and miseries that 
might ensue from the seizing and carrying beyond sea any 
person residing in America, to be tried in any other manner 
than by the ancient mode of proceeding.^ These resolves 
were calm in manner, concise, simple, and effective, and so 
perfect in form and substance that time finds no omission to 
regret and no improvement to suggest.^ They were viewed 
by one of the Burgesses as nothing more than a necessary 
and manly assertion of social privileges founded in reason, 
guaranteed by the English Constitution, and rendered sacred 

1 The Resolves were passed May 16, 1769. They are in the "Pennsylvania 
Chronicle " of June 5, and in the Boston papers of June 3. They are as follows, 
copied from the "Chronicle: " — 

Resolves of the House of Burgesses, passed the IGth of May, 17C9. 

Resolved, N'emine } That the sole right of imposing taxes on the inhabitants of this 

Contradicente, ) His Majesty's Colony and Dominion of Virginia is now, and ever 
hath been, legally and constitutionally vested in the House of Burgesses, lawfully con- 
vened, according to the ancient and established practice, with the consent of the Coun- 
cil, and of His Majesty, the King of Great Britain, or his Governor for the time 
being. 

Resolved, nemine contradicente, That it is the undoubted privilege of the inhabitants 
of this colony to petition their Sovereign for redress of grievances ; and that it is law- 
ful and expedient to procure the concurrence of His Majesty's other colonies, in dutiful 
addresses, praying the royal interposition in favor of the violated rights of America. 

Resolved, nemine contradicente, That all trials for treason, misi)rision of treason, or 
for any felony or crime whatsoever, committed and done in this His ^lajesty's said 
colony and dominion, by any person or persons residing therein, ought of right to be 
had, and conducted in and before His Majesty's courts, held ^^•ithin Ids said colony, 
according to the fixed and known course of proceeding; and that the seizing any per- 
son or persons residing in the colony, suspected of any crime whatsoever, committed 
therein, and sending such person or persons to places beyond the sea to be tried, is 
highly derogatory of the rights of British subjects, as thereby the inestimable privilege 
of being tried by a jury from the vicinage, as well as the liberty of summoning and 
producing witnesses on such trial, will be taken away from the party accused. 

Resolved, nemine contradicente. That an humble, dutiful and loyal aildress be pre- 
sented to His Majesty, to assure him of our inviolable attachment to his sacred person 
and government; and to beseech his royal interposition, as the father of all his people, 
however remote from the seat of his empire, to quiet the minds of his loyal subjects of 
this colony, and to avert from them tliose dangers and miseries which will ensue, from 
the seizing and carrying beyond sea any person residing in America, suspected of any 
crime whatsoever, to bo tried in any other manner than by the ancient and long estal>- 
lished course of proceeding. 

The following order is likewise in their journal of that date: — 

Ordered, That the speaker of this House do transmit, without delay, to the speakers 

of the several houses of assembly on this continent, a copy of the resolutions now 

agreed to by this House, requesting theii- concurrence therein. 

2 Bancroft, vi. 280. 



THE TOWNSHEND ACTS AND PUBLIC OPINION. 237 

by the possession of two hundred years. ^ But Lord Bote- 
tourt looked on them as abominable, and dissolved the 
House. 

The speaker, Peyton Randolph, sent the resolves to the 
other assemblies, accompanied by a brief Circular Letter 
expressing a belief that the importance of the subject would 
be sufficient to engage immediate attention, and that the cir- 
cumstances of America would evince the propriety of the 
action of the Burgesses.^ This generous action, spread 
through the colonies in the newspapers, elicited expressions 
of admiration and gratitude. A North-Carolina patriot 
wrote : " Don't you think the Virginians behaved like 
men ? " ^ A Philadelphia patriot exclaimed : " Noble con- 
duct! I hope every assembly on the continent will con- 
cur." ^ A New-York judgment ran : " The resolves breathe 
that noble spirit of freedom and inflexible firmness for which 
Virginia has been justly celebrated ever since the beginning 
of our troubles with Great Britain." ^ And it was said in 
Boston, " Joy and gladness are printed on the countenances 
of all the friends of liberty. ' The brave Virginians ' is a 
toast throughout New England, where the people bear them 
the most affectionate regard." ^ Well midit there have 



1 Letter of F.ichard HeriTy Lee, May 31, 1769. 

" Randolph's Circular was in the Boston papers of June 8, 1769. 

8 Letter in newspapers dated Edentou, N.C., June 22, 1769. 

■* John Dickinson's Letter, June 22. 

6 Massachusetts Gazette, June 15. 

6 Letter printed in Philadelphia, dated June 26. " The Journal of the Times" 
was the title of a series of papers prepared in Boston, but printed originally by 
John Holt, in New York, and extensively copied into the newspapers. They 
extend over many months. Under the date of June 16, 1769, it had the follow- 
ing:— 

" The late resolves of the Virginia assembly are regarded with veneration. They do 
great honor to themselves and give spirit to the other colonies. We see In these the 
same sense of justice, value for the constitutional rights of America, the same vigor 
and boldness, that breathed through the first resolves of that truly honorable house, 
and greatly contributed to form the free and generous spirit in which the colonies are 
now one. There is a, pecuUar generosity in the resolve, relating to the revival of the 
severe and obsolete statute of Henry VIII., by the late extraordinary resolutions of 
parli.ament, — as this was pointed not directly against themselves, but another colony. 
Massachusetts ought long to remember this obligation, and as common sense dictates 



238 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

been this gratitude ; for Virginia invited all the colonies 
to make common cause with Massachusetts when king and 
parliament had laid a heavy hand upon her, and the pres- 
ence of an army and a fleet attested that complete submis- 
sion was decreed as her lot. 

The assemblies, as they convened, responded heartily to 
the Virginia resolves. The assembly of Delaware, the ear- 
liest to act, did it by reiterating their sentiment.^ Some 
of the assemblies, as those of North Carolina, Rhode Island, 
and New York, adopted the Virginia resolves entire ; others, 
as in the case of Massachusetts, added resolves dictated by 
their local condition ; others, as in Maryland, altered the 
phraseology. The assemblies agreed in essentials. The 
harmony was so inspiring that it was said, " The whole con- 
tinent from New England to Georgia seems firmly fixed: 
like a strong, well-constructed arch, the more weight there 
is laid upon it the firmer it stands ; and thus with Americans, 
the more we are loaded the more we are united." ^ Thus 
grandly was the aegis of the inchoate union cast over the 
personal liberty of Americans. Thus fixed was the deter- 
mination to claim as a birthright trial by jury. 

When Lord Botetourt dissolved the House of Burgesses, 
the members immediately went to Anthony Hay's residence, 
chose Peyton Randolph moderator, discussed the situation, 
and decided to unite into an association to carry out the 
non-importation agreement. On the next day articles sub- 

tliat each colony should feel for its neighbors under those severities to which all are 
exposed, there will, there must be, ii reciprocation of such kind of obligations and grate- 
ful sentiments through all the colonies, to the disappointment and confusion of those 
who wish to divide and enslave us." 

1 A letter dated Newcastle, Pa., May 19, will show the spirit of the time. "In con- 
sequence of a letter from the speaker of the late House of Burgesses of Virginia, en- 
closing their resolves, the House of assembly here took into consideration the advice 
given to His Majesty by the Houses of Parliament for the seizing and carrying over 
any person from America to England that may be obnoxious to the king's ministers, 
and the House thought fit to adopt the Virginia Resolves in spirit as well as senti- 
ment, wliich, if done in other governments on the continent, will be the best 
evidence of unanimity that can be given." — Pennsylvajiia Chronicle, June 26, 
1769. 

2 Massachusetts Gazette, Nov. 13, 1769. 



THE TOWNSHEND ACTS AND PUBLIC OPINION. 239 

mitted by Washington were adopted and signed, — his name 
being near the head of the list. The journals circulated 
these proceedings ; ^ and thus this patriotic movement re- 
ceived a powerful impulse. It had been ridiculed and 
opposed by the Tories when proposed in the time of the 
stamp act ; and, on its revival to meet the new revenue acts, 
it had not been generally adopted, even by the Whigs. 
Neither persuasion, threats, nor personal violence could 
bring the Tories to accede to it. They alleged that to stimu- 
late domestic manufactures would draw off labor from hus- 
bandry and the fisheries ; that the combination was illegal, 
a defiance of Great Britain, and tended to produce a breach 
between her and the colonies.^ Tlie Whigs in some quar- 
ters were backward in entering into it. Thus, because in 
Rhode Island they hesitated, this colony was held up in the 
press as a plague spot ; and patriots refused to deal with its 
inhabitants.^ After the decisive action of the Burgesses, the 
Whigs pressed the movement vigorously ; assemblies thanked 
the merchants for their patriotism in adopting it ; ^ colony 
after colony, including Rhode Island, entered into it ; and 
when it was adopted by North Carolina, it was said : " This 
completes the chain of union throughout the continent for 
the measure of non-importation and economy."^ It was 

1 The articles of association and signatures ■were printed in the "Philadelphia 
Chronicle" of June 5th, 1769, and are quite elaborate. One was, not to "import 
any slaves or purchase any imported after the fifth day of November next, vmtil the 
said acts of Parliament are repealed.'' They were drawn up by George Mason, and 
sent by him in a noble letter to Washington. — Sparks's Writings of Washington, 
ii. 356. 

2 Timothy Ruggles, Feb. 29, 1768, "Reasons for not voting for Resolves in 
Massachusetts Assembly." 

8 The "Boston Gazette," Oct. 9, 1769, had an extract from a letter -written in 
New York, which says: " It is currently reported here that all intercourse with Rhode 
Island is nearly .shut up, as if the plague was there, as we v/ill neither seU to them or 
ship them any goods, nor receive any from thence, nor suffer them to sell anj' in this 
province." It was stated in the newspapers in February, 1770, that the merchants 
at Philadelphia and New York h ul agreed to renew their trade with Rhode Island. 

■* The assemblies of Connecticut and New Jersey passed resolutions in October, 
1769, wliich are in the "Massachusetts Gazette," Nov. 2 and 9. 

6 Letter dated Dec. 15, 1769, in "Massachusetts Gazette," Feb. 1, 1770. 
" Thus are the colonies at last all happily united. It now remains for the patriots to 
ImDrove this union to the best advantage," &r. 



240 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

patrioti.sm not to use certain European articles of luxury, 
not to import slaves or to buy tlieui of importers. It was 
patriotism to grow flax and wool, to spin and weave, to 
make clothes and wear them. Ingenuous youth received 
the honors of their Alma Mater, and legislators appeared 
in their halls, clothed in American apparel. The Daughters 
of Liberty vied with each other in their spinning-matches 
and homespun gowns.^ Such attire was of more lustre than 
all the gems that sparkle in the mine, for it spoke fidelity to 
a just cause. The American saw in this harmony a proof 
that "all the colonies had the same ideas of liberty." The 
saying was current in London that industry and economy were 
universal in America, where the farmer strutted in home- 
spun and cast an indignant look at the meanness of soul 
that hoped for superior distinction by indulging in the manu- 
factures of a country that exulted in enslaving the colonies.^ 
The ministers postponed the design of altering the Amer- 
ican constitutions. Lord North, in April, 1770, based a 
motion for a partial repeal of the Townshend Revenue Act 
on the petition of the merchants of London. He urged the 
abolition of the duties on glass, paper, and painter's colors, 
on the ground that they were uncommercial, while he justi- 
fied the retention of the duty on tea as necessary to assert 
the supremacy of parliament. Such was the judgment of 
the king who held that " there must always be one tax to 

1 "Williamsburg, Va., January 3, 1770. On Wednesday evening the honorable 
speaker and gentlemen of the House of Burgesses gave a ball at the capitol, for the 
entertainment of His Excellency, Lord Botetourt; and it is with the greatest pleas- 
ure we inform our readers that the same patriotic spirit which gave rise to the asso- 
ciation of gentlemen on a late event was most agreeably manifested in the dress of 
the ladies on that occasion, who, to the number of near one hundred, appeared in 
homespun gowns ; a lively and striking instance of their acquiescence and concur- 
rence in whatever may be the true and essential interest of their country. It were 
to be wished that all assemblies of American ladies would exhibit a like example of 
public virtue and private economy, so amiably united. 

" Not all the gems that sparkle in the mine 
Can make the fair witli so much lustre shine." 

Mansachusetts Gazette, Feb. 12, 1770. 

2 Piece in newspapers, under the head of "London, Aug. 16, 17G9." 



THE TOWTsSHEND ACTS AND PUBLIC OPINION. 241 

keep up the right." ^ Hence the Act was repealed (April 
12, 1770) only in part. The Declaratory Act, asserting the 
right to legislate for the colonies in all cases whatsoever, 
and the tax on tea, remained on the statute book. 

The popular leaders regarded this partial repeal as insid- 
ious and unsatisfactory, — settling nothing and boding_ evil. 
They urged a rigid adherence to the non-importation agree- 
ment as the most effectual method to obtain a redress of 
grievances. Above all, they commended union as absolutely 
essential to the salvation of America. 

The attempt of the ministry to check the republican ele- 
ment, to abridge English liberties in America, had the 
effect to throw the colonists back on themselves ; to move 
them to reflect on the scope and tendency of the ideas they 
had applied, on the institutions they had reared and the posi- 
tion they had attained ; and to reveal the fact that there were 
marked differences ou fundamentals between the views held 
by the statesmen in England and in America. A striking 
illustration of this fact is seen in the view taken of ordinary 
legislation. The ministry were united on the point that 
when an act was passed in parliament and approved, it 
became a part of the Constitution ;2 while in America it was 
reasoned tliat unless some power existed in a free State 
superior to the House of Commons, and which no power 
could destroy, the idea of a constitution was a nullity;^ and 
the power specified was the law embodied in Magna Cliarta, 
the Bill of Rights, and the Act of Settlement. This reason- 
ing familiarized the American mind with the thought that 
public liberty required the establishment of a body of organic 
law, which should be the rule of action of the agents chosen 
periodically to administer the affairs of government ; and it 
shews the progress that was going on in political science. 

1 King to Lord North, in Bancroft, vi. 277. 

2 De Bcrdt, Aug. 29, 1768 (Bradford's State Papers, 162), says the whole min- 
istry were united on this point. 

8 Piece in the newspapers, 1769. 

16 



242 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

This veneration for the free principles of the British Con- 
stitution was accompanied with the warmest expressions of 
loyalty to the crown. The popular leaders, so far from desir- 
ing to divide the empire, averred that they could not justly 
be suspected of the most distant thought of independency, 
would refuse it if it were offered to them, and would deem it 
the greatest misfortune to be obliged to accept it.^ There is 
no valid ground on which to question their sincerity in these 
declarations. They knew that they did not deal with the 
question of sovereignty, and did not mean that their oppo- 
nents should force them to do it. Their loyalty, however, did 
not imply passive submission to the arbitrary commands of 
the king, nor did their respect for the Constitution imply 
acquiescence in the decisions of administrative majorities 
when they violated fundamental rights. The treatment of 
the free assemblies, the proposed transportation of Ameri- 
cans, in direct violation of trial by jury, were viewed as the 
illegal acts and purposes of the party in power ; and were 
resisted with the spirit of freemen. 

Propositions continued to appear for a union of the colo- 
nies. Pownal reasoned that the train of events must estab- 
lish either a British or an American union ; and he argued 
that it was not more necessary to preserve the several gov- 
ernments subordinate in their several spheres than it was 
essential to the preservation of the whole empire to keep them 
disconnected and independent of each other.^ A plan termed 
" a new model" found favor with the New- York politicians ; 

1 Letter of Massachusetts assembly, Jan. 12,1768, in "Bradford's State Papers," 
124, 143. The "Boston Post Boy" of May 1, 1769, has the Petition of the New 
York General Assembly to the Lords spiritual and temporal in Parliament assem- 
bled, signed Phillip Livingston, speaker, which has the following: "If di.sloj-alty 
to the crown, want of affection to Great Britain, or a desire of independencj-, had 
the least influence upon our minds, no words could sufficiently express our ingrati- 
tude and our folly. But, my Lords, we are neither so foolish nor ungrateful. We 
can appeal to the omniscient Searcher of hearts, for the most inviolable fidelity to His 
Majesty, an utter abhorrence of a disunion with Great Britain, and a cheerful sub- 
mission to her supremacy, in every instance of authority essential to the common 
safety of the empire." 

2 Pownal's Administration of the Colonies, 4th ed., 17G8. 



THE TOWNSHEXD ACTS AND PUBLIC OPINION. 243 

and the assembly of that provhice invited each colony to 
elect representatives clothed with power to meet and legis- 
late for the whole. The House of Burgesses responded to 
this suggestion by choosing delegates to such a body.^ It 
did not, however, meet with general favor. Secretary Oliver 
broached the plan in Massachusetts ; but Dr. Cooper wrote 
that the body of the people were for the old establishment^, 
under which they had grown and flourished, and viewed the 
project as calculated to create a condition like Ireland.^ 

A union movement by the Presbyterians was regarded by 
the Tories as of great importance. It was held by the crown 
lawyers that the supremacy of the crown in ecclesiastical 
affairs extended to the colonies, and that it was not lawful 
for the clergy to assemble, as in a synod, without a royal 
license.^ Since the movement of 1725 there had been 
none called.* On the breaking out of the present troubles, 
several Presbyterians of Philadelphia, in a circular, stated 
that, though numerous, yet they were considered as nobody, 
or of very little weight or consequence ; and submitted a 
plan whereby they might act as one body whenever they 
might be called upon to defend the civil and religious 
liberties and privileges they enjoyed, or to obtain any 
of which they might be abridged. The immediate result of 
this movement was a union between the congregations of 
Pennsylvania and Delaware, which extended through the 
southern provinces ; so that in Philadelphia, in 1765, an 
annual synod began its session without a royal license. 
" Men of sense and foresight," alarmed at so formidable a 
confederacy, brought about by letters "buried in studied 
secrecy," obtained possession of these letters ; and in 1769 
they were printed in New York, when they elicited sharp dis- 
cussion. A Tory review of the rise of the Revolution gives 



1 Bancroft, vi. 316. 

2 Samuel Cooper to Governor Pownal, Jan. 1, 1770. 
8 Chalmers's Opinions of Eminent Lawyers, 50. 

* See above, p. 121. 



214 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

this movement the honor of ])cing the mainspring of the 
opposition to the government.^ 

xVt this period, the propliecies concerning the future of 
America multiplied. Thomas Hutchinson wrote that the 
natural increase of population was so great, it was prol)aI^le in 
a few generations a mighty empire would be formed on this 
continent.^ The consequences that might grow out of such an 
empire, with continued union with G-reat Britain, were glow- 
ingly dwelt upon. " Never," William Livingston wrote, " was 
there such a Phoenix state. Liberty, religion, and science 
were on their wing to these shores. The finger of God 
])ointed to a mighty empire. The mother and her sons 
would again be collected in one house, and in proportion to 
the abatement of national glory in Europe would be the 
brightness of its resurrection in America. The day dawns 
in wliich the foundation of this mighty empire is to be laid 
by the establishment of a regular American Constitution. 
All that hitherto has been done seems to be little beside the 
collection of materials for the construction of this glorious 
fabric. 'Tis time to put them together. The transfer of 
the European part of the great family is so swift, and our 
growth so fast, that before seven years roll over our heads 
the first stone must be laid."^ Here a union and constitution 



1 The "Pennsylvania Chronicle" of Sept. 25, 1709, has the Circular Letter, 
dated Philadelphia, Jlarch 24, 1764, and the " Plan or Articles," copied from the 
" Ncw-Yorlc Journal," Sept. 14, 17G9. Both were printed by Galloway in his " His- 
torical and Political Reflections," London, 1780. He saj^s that the Presbyterians 
throughout the colonies, after 1725, aimed to unite their churches: "To form these 
into one rclipous as well as one political body, was, therefore, the first measure pur- 
sued by this congregated faction, after they found themselves freed fi'om the embar- 
rassments and dangers of Indian and French incursions," p. 48. 

- Preface to the Collections, 17G8. 

8 "The American Whig, No V.," in "New-York Gazette," April 11, 1768, a 
series of papers attributed to William Livingston. They, with the replies they 
elicited, were published in a volume. The words in the text are from pp. 57, 58. 
The volume is entitled "A Collection of Tracts fi-om the Kate Newspapers," i&c, con- 
taining "The American Whig," "A Wliip for the American Whig," with some 
other pi(x-es on the subject of the residence of Protestant Bishops in the American 
colonics, and in answer to the writers who opposed it, &c. New York: 17G8. In 
one of the Tracts, a Son of Liberty remarks tlmt tlie public mind was concerned to 



THE TOWNSHEND ACTS AND PUBLIC OPINION. 245 

were foreshadowed that were to be iii harmony with alle- 
giance to the crown. 

The progress of events, however, suggested more accurate 
prophecy. Samuel Adams said that he desired the union with 
Great Britain to continue. But he judged that in the natural 
course of things the policy of the ministry must alienate 
the affections of the colonies from the mother-country, 
and he speculated on the consequences that might ensue 
from American independence. French agents — one was 
Baron De Kalb — sent over to watch the progress of events 
observed the cold indifference with which Canada and its 
dependencies viewed the efforts of the pati'iots, and reported 
that they were the only parts of English America that were 
perfectly quiet.-^ They were so impressed with the aspect 
of other parts, they wrote home that, unless the mother- 
country desisted from her course, the independence of the 
colonics was certain to take place.^ The French ambassador 
in London held frequent interviews with Franklin. Illus- 
trious Frenchmen now uttered remarkable prophecies. Du- 
rand, the minister at London, felt assured that the colonies 
would soon form a separate State.^ Chatelet, his successor, 
witnessing the determined stand of the king and the ministry, 
predicted that the day of separation was not far off, and that 
it must necessarily have the greatest influence on the whole 
political system of Europe.'^ Turgot saw with joy the pros- 
pect of an event which, more than all the books of philoso- 
pliers, would dissipate the sanguinary phantom of commer- 
cial monopoly, separate all America from Europe, and make 
its discovery truly useful to mankind.^ Choiseul, the pre- 

knovr " whether we are a nation of generous freemen or of despicable slaves." — p. 43. 
Another gives the following statistics: "In all New England there are but eleven 
Presbyterian congregations; whilst there are thirty Quaker churches, thirty-nine 
Anabaptists, about fift}- Separatist churches, about eighty congregations of the 
Church of England, and five hundred and eighty-six Congregational meetings." — 
p. 4.30. 

1 De Witt's Jefftrson and tlie American Democracj', 379. 

2 Ibid., 382. De Kalb, in a letter dated Jan. 15, 1768. 

8 Cited in Bancroft, vi. 1G9. * Ibid., 245. 6 ibid., 370. 



246 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

mier, sagaciously interpreting the signs of the times, planned 
a treaty of commerce to offer America, with the view of 
hastening this result.^ 

The movement elicited by the Townshend Revenue Acts 
resulted in a settled public opinion and conviction by a free 
people, as to the nature and value of their rights. This was 
embodied in the utterances of public bodies and the press. 
Many were circulated in the journals and in pamphlets in 
England, and the ability they evinced elicited high praise. 
It was said to be a common remark in London that " they 
were written in a style not to be equalled in any part of the 
British dominions." ^ Many were translated and circulated on 
the continent. " All Europe," Franklin wrote, " is attentive 
to the dispute between Britain and the colonics : our part is 
taken everywhere." ^ Generous tributes from abroad flowed 
in upon the patriots. A London letter reads: "Your late 
conduct is noble indeed : every ray is splendid with asserted 
right and vindicated freedom." ^ Another wrote : " The 
whole Christian world owe you much thanks. The star ris- 
ing out of your wilderness will become a great luminary and 
enlighten the whole earth." ^ A Paris letter, urging a con- 
tinuance of the "noble struggle for liberty," runs: "I 
imagine I see illustrious statesmen, eloquent orators, wise 
historians, and learned philosophers rising up among you, 



1 Bancroft, vi. 169. 

2 London letter, Jan. 19, 17G9, in the newspapers. 

8 Franklin's Works, vii. 470. Letter, April 14, 1770. 
* Massachusetts Gazette, Oct. 19, 1769. Letter from London, Aug. 3. 
6 A letter dated London, July 23, 1770, printed in the " Boston Evening Post" 
of Sept. 17, 1770, says: — 

"The voluntary recess of your virtuous and brave ancestors from the scenes of tyr- 
anny and corruption which the reign of the Stuarts liad spread over this kingdom, 
.and the colonies .and churches which they established on your continent upon the more 
glorious principles of catholic Christianity, I cannot but consider as a most important 
event, by which very happy fruits, which are now (though amidst heavy storms) ripen- 
ing for the signal benefit of tlie whole Cliristian Churcli. For that noble stand you 
have made in the cause both of civil .and religious liberty, the whole Christian world 
owe yo\i much thanks. Tlie star rising out of your wilderness will, I trust and pray, 
Itecome a gi'eat luminary and enlighten the wliole earth. May your patience and fidel- 
ity continue steadfast to the end." 



THE TOWNSHEND ACTS AND PUBLIC OPINION. 247 

whose generous souls have espoused the interests of human- 
ity, and are spreading the blessings of liberty throughout 
the world around them."^ These praises, circulated by the 
press, might be read in every home in America. They could 
hardly fail to strengthen the conviction of the patriots that 
their stand for liberty and law was appreciated, — that it 
would be approved by the wise and good, and that they 
would be justified in maintaining it at every cost. 

In the tribute just cited, it is said that the patriots had em- 
braced the cause of humanity. It is averred that the word 
mankind, to signify brotherhood, never passed the lips of 
Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle;^ and that the idea of human 
equality was thoroughly ignored by society in the pagan 
world.^ But the word and the idea were in common use in 
speaking of the movement germinating in America. The 
earliest utterances of the patriots are inspired by the thought 
that Providence had set them to defend the rights and liber- 
ties of mankind ; * and in their proud day of trimiiph they 
said, Let it be remembered that it has ever been the pride and 
boast of America that the rights for which she contended 
were the rights of human nature.^ Their noble array of 
utterances warrant the remark that they viewed " mankind 
toiling and suffering, separated by oceans, divided by lan- 
guage, and severed by national enmity, yet evermore tending 
under a divine control towards the fulfilment of that inscru- 
table purpose for which the world was created, and man 
placed in it, bearing the image of God." ^ Native gifts de- 
veloped in labors in behalf of such a cause. Men thus grew 
in stature ; each colony had its roll of honor, and said and 
did things that made a mark on the age. One great name, 



1 Letter from Paris, in "Massachusetts Gazette," Aug. 27, 1770. 

2 ISIax Miiller's Chips from a German Workshop, ii. 5. 
8 Above, p. 6. 

■* This was the language of the Boston press before the Stamp Act. Life and 
Times of Warren, 35. 

6 Address of Congress, April 26, 1783, drawn by Madison. 
6 Max Miiller, Chips, &c., ii. 5. 



248 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

in particular, was gathering lustre. "Washington was active 
on the political stage, destined soon to be 

" Among the sons 



Of fame well known, bright as the morning star 
Among tlie lesser lights; a patriot skilled 
In all the glorious arts of peace and war." ^ 

1 "Rising Glory of America," spoken at the commencement of the college in 
New Jersey, Sept. 25, 1771. In the "General Advertiser," London, Feb. 14, 1778. 
The following is an extract from this poem : — 

" The mind prophetic grows, and pierces far 
Through ages yet unborn. We saw the states 
And mighty empires of the East arise, 
In swift succession from the Assyrian 
To Wacedou and Rome ; to Biitain tlienee 
Dominion drove her car. She stretched her reign 
O'er many isles, wide seas, and peopled lands. 
Now, in the West, a continent appears; 
A newer world now opens to her view ; 
Slie hastens onward to the .\meric shores, 
And bids a scene of recent wonders rise : 
New states, new empires, and a race of men 
High raised in glory ; cities and people 
Numerous as sand upon the ocean shore. 
Th' Ohio then shall glide by many a town 
Of note ; and where the Mississippi stream, 
By forests shaded, now runs weeping on. 
Nations shall grow, and states not less in fame 
Than Greece and Rome of old: we too shall boast 
Our Alexanders, Pompeys, heroes 
That in the womb of time yet dormant lie, 
Waiting the joyful hour for life and light." 

In the copy in the "Advertiser" of 1778, Washington's name occurs in the cita- 
tion in the text, but does not occur in the original printed in Philadelphia in 1772. 
It was written by Phillip Freneau, and the title-page of the pamphlet of 1772 had 
Seneca's ^^venient annis.^'' 



CHAPTEE VII. 

How THE Patriots advanced from an Embodiment op Public 
Opinion to a Party Organization, by forming Committees 
of Correspondence. 

March, 1770, to August, 1773. 

The patriots, in dealing with the Stamp Act and the 
Townshend Revenue Acts, developed elements of union, 
which had gathered strength beneath the diversity that 
characterized the colonial age ; and thirteen communities 
embodied in their varied action common convictions on polit- 
ical ideas, and so were prepared for a general organization. 
When the ministry attempted to carry out their policy by 
arbitrary Royal Instructions, the patriots formed commit- 
tees of correspondence, and thus organized the party which 
achieved the American Revolution. 

The successive British administrations, since the beginning 
of the controversy of the colonies with the mother-country, 
had been composed of members of several parties ; but at 
length the Tory party attained power, as it ruled England, 
with brief intervals, for half a century.^ It was imbued 
with low views of human nature, high-toned principles of 
government, unsound doctrines of political economy, and a 
disposition to stretch the prerogative and to gratify the pride 
of dominion. Out of its ranks George III. formed a cabinet 
"to deal with Wilkes and America." The premier. Lord 
North, about forty years of age, was a scholar of elegant 
taste, of eminent ability as a debater, and had administra- 
tive talents which qualified him for his place. He voted 
for the Stamp Act and against its repeal, and was the 

1 Earl Eusscll's Essay on the English Government. Introduction, Ed. 1885. 



250 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

first to move the expulsion of Wilkes. One of his sayings 
then circulated in the press was, that he never could ac- 
quiesce in tlie absurd opinion that all men were equal ; 
another, that the question between England and her colonies 
was no less than sovereignty on the one side and independ- 
ence on the other ,1 when shnple justice by England might 
have adjourned, at least for years, all thought of inde- 
pendence. 

The Tory party, in partially repealmg the Townshend 
Revenue Acts, only paused in the execution of the Bute 
policy. It was fully embodied in the Declaratory Act of 
1766, that the king's majesty, with the advice of parlia- 
ment, had, and of right ought to have, full power to make 
laws of sufficient validity to bind the people of America in 
all cases whatever, — "a resolution," Lord Chatham said, 
" for England's right to do what the Treasury pleased with 
three millions of freemen." ^ It was also embodied in the tax 
on tea retained to keep up the right. The party, and indeed 
Englishmen generally, looked upon ^Imericans as inferiors, 
whom England had the right to rule, and use for her benefit ; 
and to question this was to insult the sovereignty.^ The 
Secretary for the colonies was the Earl of Hillsborough. He 
said in debate, as to the past, that " it had been the object 
of every administration since the reign of Charles 11. to 
endeavor to establish a civil list in America independent of 
the assemblies ; " and he frankly declared, as to the future, 
that " a republican spirit prevailed through the colonies, 
which every administration must discourage."^ It might 

1 Lord North's speech, in "Massachusetts Gazette," Oct. 22, 1770. 

2 Cliathani's Correspondence, ii. 3G5. 

3 "Every Englishman considers himself as king of America, and peculiarly 
interested in our subjection." — Boston Gazette, Sept. 17, 1770. Lord Chatham 
said that Americans must be made to obey the laws of England. "If j-ou do not 
make laws for them, let me tell you, my Lords, they do, thcj' will, they must make 
laws for you " — .Sparks's Franklin, vii. 468. Franklin said: "Every man in Eng- 
land . . . seems to jostle himself into the throne with the king, and talks of our 
subjects in America." 

4 The " jNIassachusetts Gazette" of Sept. 3, 177G, has a report of Hillsborough's 
«peech in parliament, delivered May, 1770. 



ROYAL INSTRUCTIONS AND PARTY ORGANIZATION. 251 

liave been wise to have simply aimed to render the imperial 
authority independent in its proper sphere, while leaving the 
local authorities free to act in their spheres, just as the 
officers of the United States are independent of the State 
and municipal authorities ; but the object of putting the civil 
list on a new basis, — arrogantly avowed from ministerial 
benches, and steadily pursued by the men in power, — was to 
repress the republican spirit, by shaping the local govern- 
ments according to English ideas. Thus the minister 
aimed to impose a polity on a people, instead of recognizing 
and protecting the polity developed by them, and which was 
a natural outgrowth. Such a purpose was war on their dearly 
prized local self-government ; and it was prosecuted in the 
same spirit of persecution of the liberal element in America 
which characterized the course of the party in England. It 
was as suicidal a policy as it would be for an American ad- 
ministration to aim at impairing the municipal liberties, 
which are perennial fountains of a noble public life. On 
this object the vigilant eye of patriotism kept steadily fixed. 
The ministers, in carrying out this policy, now resorted 
to an extraordinary use of Royal Instructions, which, for 
three years, played an important part in American politics. 
A rule of action, to meet a current question in England, 
was concisely stated in the following terms : " Tiie law is 
above tlie king ; and the crown, as well as the subject, is 
bound by it as much during the recess as in the session of 
parliament ; because no point of time nor emergent circum- 
stance can alter the Constitution, or create a right not ante- 
cedently inherent. These only draw forth into action the 
power that before existed, but was quiescent. There is no 
such prerogative in any hour or moment of time as vests 
the semblance of legislative power in the crown." ^ This 

1 See the remarkable speech in " Parliamentaiy History," vol. xvi p. 259. 
Franklin, Jan. 13, 1772, relates a conversation he had several years before with Lord 
Granville, who said tJiat the king's instructions, when received by the governors, 
were the laws of (he land; "for the king is the legislator of the colonies." — Sparks's 
Works of Franklin, vii. 550. 



252 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

doctrine seems to have been accepted by the American 
Whigs ; for their utterances are imbued with the sentiment 
inculcated by the school of Locke, that the freedom of a 
people under government is to have standing rules to live 
by, so that the government may be one of laws, and not of 
men. 

Without much regard to this rule, or indeed to any law, 
the ministers, after the repeal of the Townshend Acts, 
issued to the governors a series of extraordinary instruc- 
tions. They came under the king's sign manual, with the 
privy seal annexed. It was said that officials could not 
refuse to execute them without giving up the rights of the 
crown. ^ A set was not framed to apply to all the colonies 
alike, but special instructions were sent to each colony as 
local circumstances dictated. Hence the patriots could not 
create a general issue on them. They have been termed a 
new set of measures determined on to prevent American 
Independence. The first instruction was adopted in the 
Privy Council on the 6th of July, 1770.^ This may be 
fixed on as the time when Royal Instructions began their 
mission. 

In framing these instructions, little, if any, regard was 
paid to customs, forms, and prejudices in the colonies as old 
as their existence, which had become unwa-ittcn law, and 
were therefore, at least, worthy of consideration. The first 
instruction sent to Massachusetts ordered Castle William 
to be garrisoned by the king's troops, when the charter ol 
the colony expressly provided that it should be garrisoned 

1 The Censor, Dec. 22, 1771, p. 18. This was a periodical to which Lieutenant 
Governor Oliver, Thomas Grecnleaf, and otlier loyalistn, contributed; published by 
E Russell, Boston The first number is dated Nov 23, 1771, and the last iSIay 2, 
1772. It defended the policy of tlie ministers. 

2 Bancroft (vi. 369) states that this order to garrison Castle William was the 
beginning of "the system of measures to prevent American Independence." Tiie 
same order directed that His Majesty's ships should rendezvous in the harbor of 
Boston. It was said by this act "ministers had declared war against Boston." 
Lord Chatham termed the intelligence sent to him "a most melancholy piece of 
information." — Chatham's Correspondence, iii. iUS. The execution of the order 
caused great excitement. 



ROYAL INSTRUCTIONS AND PARTY ORGANIZATION. 253 

by the provincial militia. The instructions required the dis- 
solution of assemblies; their removal to unusual places of 
meeting, as in South Carolina to Beaufort,^ and in Massa- 
chusetts to Cambridge ; negatived arbitrarily the choice of 
speakers ; provided for the maintenance of local officers : 
and thus entirely ignored the local legislation for the sup- 
port of government, and even directed the executive to 
refuse his assent to tax-bills because they taxed the officers 
of government.^ Similar in effect was an extraordinary 
use of the prerogative ; as in Maryland, where the governor 
assumed by proclamation to revive a law regulating fees of 
officers which had expired by limitation, in this way asserting 
the right to levy taxes ; as in North Carolina, where royal 
officials assessed enormous fees, and imprisoned the citizens 
on slight evidence or none at all. In Rhode Island, the 
commander of the British schooner " Gaspee " made a gen- 
eral seizure of the vessels engaged in trade in Newport 
Harbor, and committed other outrages. Royal Instructions 
. required the colonies to desist from their opposition to the 
slave-trade. The ministry seemed bent on giving full force 
to the Declaratory Act, and governing the colonies in all 
cases whatever ; and their arbitrary practices grated harshly 
on a people habituated to the ways of freedom. 

These practices were manfully, and in general successfully, 
met. In some cases they provoked deeds of violence. The 
rapine and extortion practised in North Carolina drove an 
oppressed people to insurrection, and hence the war of the 
Regulators.^ The insolence of the commander of the 



1 A writer in the "South Carolina Gazette" of Sept. 15, 1772, says: "There 
has been no assembly to do business for a long time. The last was called, and after 
sitting three or four days was abruptly dissolved. Now another is called at Beaufort, 
upwards of seventy miles from the capital, at a place where no assembly ever sat 
before." 

2 The "Boston Gazette" of July 8, 1771, has this instruction, called the 27th: 
"It is our will and pleasure that you do not for the future, upon any pretext, give 
your consent to any law or laws " by which these officers were taxed. 

3 The " Boston Evening Post" of Nov. 12, 1770, has an account of the Regu- 
lators. 



254 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

" Gaspec," in Rhode Island, led to an enterprise that 
effected her destruction. The Executive Proclamation, in 
Maryland, divided the colony into two parties, which con- 
tinued their struggle down to the Revolution ; and in opposi- 
tion to it were Charles Carroll, Thomas Johnson, William 
Paca, and Samuel Chase .^ In Georgia the rejection of the 
speaker was regarded by the assembly a breach of the 
privileges of the House, and as tending to subvert the most 
valuable rights and liberties of the people.^ The infamous 
instruction on the slave-trade elicited a remarkable petition 
from the Virginia Burgesses to the king, in whicli that com- 
merce was represented as inhuman ; and it w^as urged that 
unless it were checked it would endanger the very existence 
of His Majesty's 'American dominions.^ In brief, the claim 
that the king's instructions had the force of law, or that 
the people were under a personal government, was every- 
where contested. Its nature and tendency were exposed in 
papers issued by public meetings, by general assemblies,^ and. 
the press, often marked by keen analysis and strong reason- . 
ing. Indeed, the vein of Americanism was so wide and deep, 
that, outside of official circles, these instructions had scarcely 
more than quasi-defenders. For even the Tories would con- 

1 IMcMahon's Maryland, 380. The Proclamation was issued May 20, 1770. 
From this date to the Eevohition, other subjects gave way to this engrossing topic. 

2 The commons elected Noble Wimberly Jones three times their speaker luiani- 
monsly, and the choice was three times negatived, when he declined. Archibald 
Bidlock was then chosen, and the record made that he was elected only because 
Jones declined. The Governor said: "If this record is to stand on your journals, I 
have no choice but to dissolve the assembly." The House replied: "Our third 
choice of Noble Wimberly Jones, Esq., as our speaker, was not in the least meant 
as disrespectful to His Majesty, or you as his representative, nor thereby did we 
mean to infringe on the just prerogative of the crown." "Massachusetts Gazette," 
June 11, 1772, has the documents at length. 

3 The "Massachusetts Gazette," Oct. 8, 1772, has the address of the House of 
Burgesses to the king on the slave-trade. They pray for the removal of those 
restraints on His Majesty's governors which inhibit their assenting to such laws as 
might check so pernicious a commerce. 

4 The Massachusetts House of Representatives, June 19, 1771, protested "against 
all such doctrines, principles, and practices as tend to establish either ministerial or 
even Royal Instructions as laws within the province " — Massachusetts Gazette, 
June 20, 1771. 



ROYAL INSTRUCTIONS AND PARTY ORGANIZATION. 255 

cede that the colonists might justly claim and expect as great 
a degree of legislation among themselves as would consist 
witli the maintenance of the supremacy of parliament, and 
the general good of the whole ;^ while che Whigs, conced- 
ing the supremacy of parliament in its sphere, held that 
(lie proper degree of legislation embraced all matters of 
a domestic nature, and especially taxation ; indeed, that 
tlie privileges of the commons or the assemblies, in their 
sphere, were, " to all intents and purposes, as full, express, 
and uncontrollable within the colony as those usually exer- 
cised by the commons of Great Britain within the realm," ^ 
the legislation of the assemblies and the parliament being- 
alike subject to the revision of the king. In these assem- 
blies the pebple, composing the political unit called the 
province and the commonwealth,^ made the laws and 
moulded their polity; and when instructions, set forth as 
rights of the crown, were used to levy moneys, support gov- 
ernment, and administer justice, it was natural that they 
should have been looked upon as war on the old self-govern- 
ment. It was said in Virginia that " the ministry had 
substituted discretion for law, and set the principles of the 
Constitution, which should be fixed and free, afloat upon 
the merciless and fluctuating sea of arbitrary will." * It Avas 
said in Massachusetts " that the king, by his mere will, 
had created a clandestine, capricious, and destructive mode, 
couched under the specious umbrage of Royal Instructions." 
It was said in Pennsylvania that the practice tended to set 
aside the assemblies.^ " Not to oppose," Arthur Lee wrote, 

1 "Chronus," a Tory writer, in "Massachusetts Gazette," Jan. 9, 1772. 

2 Boston Instructions, in "Boston Gazette,"- May 6, 1773. 

3 Tlie use of the term " Commonwealth " (see p. 59) was early censured. Franklin 
\n-itcs, June 8, 1770 (Works, vii. 47G): "The colonies originally were constituted 
distinct States." The places where the assemblies met were sometimes tenned 
" State House." 

4 Life of Arthur Lee, i. 248. 

6 Among the able papers of this period is a letter sent by the committee of mer- 
diants of rhiladclphia to the committee of London merchants. It averred: — 

" Tliat all Americans concurred in the sentiment that the prosperity of the colonies 
depended on their connection with Great Britain, and that there could not be a greater 



N' 



256 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

" tills most pernicious system, would be crime ; to oppose it 
unsuccessfully, would be misfortune only." The colonial 
judgment on this insidious phase of centralization was as 
intelligent as it was just. 

]\Ieantime word had gone through the colonies to adhere 
to the non-importation agreement, as the best means to pro- 
cure a repeal of the tax on tea, and a redress of grievances ; 
on the ground that this would distress the commerce of Eng- 
land and aid the opponents of the administration. Fidelity 
to this agreement came to be looked upon as vital to the 
salvation of the cause, — in fact, as a test of patriotism. 
"Let us be united," a Philadelphia broadside runs: "the 
eyes of all Europe, nay, of the whole world, are fixed upon 
us." ^ In general, the patriots carried out the agreement in 
good faith ; but the Tories, and selfish men among the Whigs, 
would not respect it, when personal violence was used to 
compel its observance. Its enemies charged upon the 
patriots as a body the delinquencies really belonging to the 
few. It was alleged that Virginia and Massachusetts were 
growing rich at the expense of their neighbors. In this 
period of mistrust the merchants of the city of New York 
sent out a Circular to the principal commercial places, pro- 
posing to confine the agreement of non-importation to the 
single article of tea, and that trade should be free in all 
other articles. The proposition fell upon the patriots like 
the news of some public calamity. It created a panic. ^ 

deviation from truth than to represent the colonies as concerting a plan of resistance to 
the government. But they also averreil that Americans had ' anxious fears for the 
existence of their assemblies, which they considered their last and only bulwark against 
arbitrary jiower. For if, say they, laws can be made, money levied, government sup- 
ported, and justice administered, without the intervention of assemblies, of what use 
can they be ? And being useless and unessential, is there not reason to fear they will 
fjuickly become disagreeable and then be wholly laid aside? And when that happens, 
what security have we for freedom, or what remains for the colonists but the most 
abject slavery? Tliese are not the reasonings of politicians, but the sentiments and 
language of the people in general.' " 

See more of this admirable letter in Gordon, i. 208. 

1 Broadside issued in Philadelphia July 14, 1771. 

2 A letter from Connecticut says that the universal consternation which the late 
letter from New York gave the people of all ranks, was easier to be conceived than 



ROYAL INSTRUCTIONS AND PARTY ORGANIZATION. 257 

The excitement was general and intense. The proposal was 
met by indignant remonstrances. In Boston, at a meeting 
in Fancuil Hall, the New-York Circular was ordered to be 
torn in pieces and scattered to the winds, in token of abhor- 
rence. The students of Princeton College, — James Madison 
being one, — clothed in American cloth and arrayed in black 
gowns, gathered in the college yard; and, while the bell 
tolled, the New- York letter was committed to the flames.^ 
The New-Yorkers, however, carried their point, and were 
called " Revolters." The merchants of Charleston, in a noble 
letter, urged that unanimity was absolutely necessary, and 
that the people of that province had bound themselves to the 
cause of American liberty,^ and nowhere was the course of 
the Revolters more indignantly denounced. The merchants 
of Philadelphia, in a sorrowful and strong letter, averred 
that the New- York merchants had certainly weakened that 
union of the colonies on which their salvatiq^ depended, 
and, in a day of trial, had deserted the cause of their 
country. There was sterner action in other colonies. The 
patriots of Charleston, S.C., voted, at a great meeting, 
that, because the inhabitants of Georgia did not come 
into the agreement, they " ought to be amputated from 
the rest of the brethren as a rotten part that might spread 
a dangerous infection ; " ^ and, for the same offence, the 
patriots of Boston voted that they would not hold inter- 
expressed, nor to be conceived but by those who have been present at news of some 
public misfortune first spreading. — Massachusetts Gazette, June 28, 1770. 

1 Rives's Life of Madison, i. 4. A broadside dated " Philadelphia State House, 
•July 14, 1770," and signed "Pennsylvania," saj's: "The New-Yorkers have 
betrayed a meanness and cowardice in deserting us in the present important junc- 
ture, which wants a name. May infamy be their portion ! And may the names of 
a Bute, Grenville, a Bernard and a Yorker, hereafter be synonymous words." Arthur 
Lee, ^vriting to Dr. T. Bland, London, Aug. 21, 1770, says: "I have hardly spirit 
to write, so severely do I feel the fatal news which has just reached us of the treach- 
ery of New York in basely deserting the common cause of liberty. Much am I 
afraid the evil will spread." — Bland Papers, i. 28. 

2 This letter is in the "Massachusetts Gazette," May 24, 1770. 

8 Charles Pinckney was chairman of the meeting, which was described as numer- 
ous and respectable as ever gathered under Liberty Tree. — Boston Evening Post, 
July 23, 1770. 

17 



258 THE RISE OF THE EEPUBLIC. 

course with the merchants of New Hampshire, or with any 
who held intercourse with them.^ The matter on tliis sub- 
ject is vokmiinous. The newspapers abound with relations 
of the proceedings of towns and counties, denouncing tlie 
violators ot the agreement ; and of the merchants of Phila- 
delphia, Boston, and Charleston, and of other places, decree- 
ing non-intercourse with New York. Words were followed 
by blows ; and the vessels from New York, New Hampshire, 
and Rhode Island, were driven from the ports of Boston, 
Charleston, Philadelphia, and other places.^ Besides this 
wholesale anathema and crimination, there were bitter feuds 
between several colonies about local jurisdiction. New 
Hampshire and New York were contending for the territory 
now Vermont ; and Connecticut and Pennsylvania were 
fighting at AVyoming.^ Thus the American cause was in the 

1 Massachusetts Gazette, June 28, 1770. The committees on imports and ex- 
ports were directed to keep the strictest look-out that no sort of goods came in from 
or went out to any part of Now Hampshire. In the " jMassachusetts Gazette," June 
4, 1770, is the following: "The merchants, &c., of Philadelphia, have come into 
Resolutions not to have any dealings with the colony of Rhode Island for breaking 
through their non-importation agreement. Captain "Whitman, lately arrived at 
Philadelphia from Newport, was not suffered to land his cargu, but was obliged to 
turn back again." 

2 The newspapers of July, 1770, contain many items shoiving the bitterness that 
prevailed between the colonies. The following are from the "Massachusetts 
Gazette" of July 5: — 

" Captain Smith has returned to Providence with his cargo from PMladelphia. He 
was obliged to leave Philadelpliia." 

" The freeholders, merchants, and traders of New Brunswick, in New Jersey, have 
come into resolves to operate with the other colonies with respect to non-importation, 
and to have no commerce with Kliode Island." 

" An account is given of the proceedings of ' persons ' residing in the principal trad- 
ing towns on Connecticut Kiver, who decreed non-intercourse with Portsmouth, 
N. H." 

"A long relation of the doings of the Committee of Inspection of Windham, Conn., 
and the sending goods back to Providence, the merchants of which, it is said, had 
'basely betrayed their trust, and sold their birthright privileges for a mess of 
pottage.' " 

8 " Wyoming, Aug. 1, 1771. Last Tuesday, about break of day, I arrived at tliis 
place with thirty-one men and provisions, and was attacked by the Connecticut 
party. . . . We were surrounded by their tire. . . . Got in with twenty-two of 
our men. Nine are missing. They have kept up an almost continuous fire on our 
block-house ever since, from four intrenchments; but wc are det<!nnined to hold out 
to the last extremity." — Massachusetts Gazette, Aug. 19, 1771. 

"We hear from Albany that another expedition, like that formerly carried on 



ROYAL INSTRUCTIONS AND PARTY ORGANIZATION. 259 

presence of varied internal strife. It was feared by the 
patriots that two evils would be likely to grow out of this 
confusion and bloodshed, that might prove irremediable, — 
loss of character in England, and the destruction of that 
confidence at home that was essential to success.^ It was 
exultingiy said by the Tories, who rejoiced at the dissension 
and weakness, that the union was well broken,^ and that it 
would require a miracle to restore it. It is wonderful that 
men now living saw this spectacle, were born when the 
thirteen colonies seemed destined to reproduce only the petty 
autonomy of ancient Greece, and to suffer as the penalty 
border wars, chronic impotence, or subjection to foreign 
sway. 

The non-importation agreement was broken, to the infinite 
joy of the Tories in America and in England.^ Then no gen- 
eral issue remained to stir the colonies. The blood shed in 
Boston by British soldiers on the memorable Fifth of March, 
1770, produced a thrill of horror ; but there succeeded im- 
mediately the forced removal from the town of the obnox- 
ious troops, and the general exultations at the triumph of 
the patriots. In some of the colonies exciting local issues 
were created by the execution of arbitrary Royal Instructions ; 
but the desire was general to drop the controversy with the 
mother-country.* Even in Massachusetts, though there 

against Noble-Town, is proceeding against Bennington. More of the salubrious 
effects of the extensive wisdom and goodness of a righteous administration, who 
first intrusted Governor Wentwortli to grant those lands for speedy settlement; then 
turned right about, and countenanced the monopolizing grandees of New York." — 
Boston Gazette, -hily 29, 1771. The " Massachusetts Gazette " of May 7, 1772, has 
a relation of a raid of New-Yorkers on sundry towns granted by New Hampshire, to 
turn them out of their possessions, in which blood was shed. 

1 Letter of Arthur Lee. 

2 Hutchinson viTote June, 22, 1772: "The vinion of the colonies is pretty well 
broke. I hope I never shall see it renewed." 

3 John Adams •\\Tites (Works, ii. 364): "Mr. Reed told us, at dinner, that he 
never saw gi-eater joy than he saw at London when the news an'ived that the non- 
importation agi-eement was broke. They were universally shaking hands and con- 
gratulating each other." 

■* Ramsay (Hist. Am. Revolution, 70), says that " m.iny hoped diat the contention 
between the two countries was finally closed. In all the provinces, except Massa- 



260 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

were sharp contests between the assembl}^ and the executive, 
and passionate appeals in the press, the people were averse 
to political agitation. This calmness was the basis of the 
opinion expressed in London, that the disputes with the 
government had subsided ; of the congratulations on the 
tranquillity of public affairs ; and of the boast of Lord 
Hillsborough, that America had returned to a due sense of 
lier error in opposing his administration. ^ 

The popular leaders, however, kept on exposing the 

i-hupctts, appearances seemed to favnr that opinion." " Verus," a Tory, addressing 
" The Free Electors of Massachusetts," in the "Massachusetts Gazette," May 15, 
1771, says of the popular leaders of Massachusetts: "They cannot bear the tranquil 
state of New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and 
the other governments, except North Carolina, whose Regulators also, it is to be 
hoped, will soon be suppressed." 

A piece in the "Massachusetts Gazette " (Tory), Feb. 6, 1772, begins: — 

" They that are in will grin, 
They that are out will pout." 

Inscrti Aiijctaris. 

"The dispute between the kingdom and the colonies ceases everywhere except 
in this province. . . . Every other colony has made its peace. Some are seeking 
one favor, some another." Another piece in the same paper terms the patriots 
"Sons of Discontent and Rapine." ' 

The "Censor," No. 5, Dec. 21, 1771, republishes by request "An Eastern 
Histoiy," in two chapters; one containing forty-six verses, and the other thirty- 
four. It touches on things in Massachusetts from the beginning of the reign of 
George III. to the time of Hutchinson's appointment as governor. The twenty- 
sixth verse of chapter i. relates that certain sons of Belial, who had nor gold nor 
silver, asked themselves, "What can we lose? peradventure by our crafl we may 
gain something." The twenty-eighth verse runs: "So Samuel the Publican 
(Adams), and William the Scribe (Cooper), and Will the Weaver (Molineaux), with 
others of the sons of Belial, set themselves to oppose Francis, the Governor, and 
Thomas, the Chief Judge, and drew much people after them; and the land was dis- 
quieted." The thirty-first verse of chapter ii. says, after the repeal of the revenue 
acts, " the land had rest, save only in the province of Massachusetts; for there the 
sons of Belial yet continued to deceive the multitude." 

Samuel Adams, March 25, 1771, wrote to Arthur Lee, now in London: "If the 
people are at present hushed into silence, is it not a sort of sullen silence which is far 
from iiulicating your conclusion that the glorious spirit of libertj' is vanquished, and 
left without hope but in miracles ? It is the effect of a mistaken prudence which 
springs from indolence," &c. 

1 Massachusetts Gazette, Feb. 10, 1772. Arthur Lee says, in a letter to Samuel 
Adan\s, April 7, 1772: " My Lord Hillsborough does not deserve from us a confiiTiia- 
tion of his insolent boast, that America is quiet and returned to a due sense of her 
error m opposing his righteous and able government. And, upon the whole, why 
should we be less persevering in opposition than they are in oppression? " 



ROYAL INSTRUCTIONS AND PARTY ORGANIZATION. 261 

danger of admitting Royal Instructions to have the force 
of law, and earnestly urged renewed effort in behalf of 
American liberty. They never yielded to the fatal heresy 
of a personal government, or to the sweep of power covered 
by the Declaratory Act. They saw in the halcyon sky the 
cloud no bigger than a man's hand, which contained the 
thundeibolt of civil war ; and, in the storm which they pre- 
dicted, they could see shelter only in the fold of union. It 
is not easy to imagine how political insight could have been 
more penetrating as to causes, or foresight more accurate 
as to results. 

Among these leaders Samuel Adams was pre-eminent. He 
had been steadily rising in reputation in Massachusetts and 
abroad. There had been no decline in his zeal, no pause in 
his labor. He gave to the cause the whole of his time. A 
wide correspondence, voluminous writing in the press,^ and 
masterly state papers attest his intelligence, industry, and 
influence. He was now directing public attention, through 
the press, to the theory and practice of the ministry. While 
he restated the old argument against the right of parlia- 
ment to tax, he closely examined the foundations of the 
claim of the ministers to govern by Royal Instructions. He 
had grasped the idea that the king, lords, and commons, 
as well as the colonies, were subject to the authority and 
bound by the limitations of constitutional law. In applying 
this idea, he did not appeal to what might quite as likely 
be human fancy or passion, or the political capital of arrant 
demagogues, as the State's collected will; but he appealed 
to a supreme law which the nation had made, and which it 
was expected the temporary agents would ever respect and 
preserve : as the trial by jury, the liabeas corpus. Magna 
Charta, — expressions of the general reason, organic, and 
therefore inviolable. For illustration : wlien his opponents, 

1 " The General Court not being in session, the press sounded a loud alarm in the 
ears of the people. At no period of the world was its freedom of greater service t3 
mankind." — Wells, MSS. Life of Samuel Adams, i. 326. 



262 THE EISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

in controverting his position, urged that Magna Charta was 
but an act of parliament, which kings, lords, and commons, 
as the sovereignty, might amend as they could any ordinary 
act, he would make the grand answer : ^ This view made 
Magna Charta of no greater consequence than a corporation 
of button-makers ; whereas Lord Coke held that it was 
declaratory of the principal grounds of the fundamental 
laws and liberties of England .^ His appeal could hardly 
have been more forcible had there been established the 
American custom of a written constitution, which, to all, 
was a supreme law : even this, however, is of little value in 
the presence of a dead constitutional morality. The appeal 
of Samuel Adams was to such constitutional law as was 
grounded in the hearts of the nation, and which Americans 
loved and respected. While he emphatically denied that 
the just supremacy of parliament was questioned, specifying 
as an illustration the general concession of the riglit to regu- 
late the trade of the empire, — and as earnestly disclaimed 
the intention of calling in question the sovereignty, specifying 
the facts attesting the loyalty to the crown, — he contended 
for the preservation to each colony of its old right to make 
its laws of a domestic nature, and held that the people, as 
Americans, were members of one body, or of the nation ; 
and while they were bound to fight for the king, they were 
entitled to be recognized as co-equal sharers with the English 
people in English liberties. 

The aggressions on popular rights in Massachusetts re- 
quired continued service at his hands, in private consulta- 
tions, in public meetings, in the general assembly, and in 
preparing matter for the press ; and it is doing no injustice 
to others to say that he was the centre around which all the 
movements of the patriots turned.^ Still his eye was ever 

1 "Chronus," a Tory writer, in "Massachusetts Gazette," Jan. 9, 1772. 

2 " Candidas " (S. Adams), in reply to "Chronus," in "Boston Giizette," 
Jan. 27, 1772. 

8 Life of John Adams (by C. F. Adams), 124. 



ROYAL INSTRUCTIONS AND PARTY ORGANIZATION. 263 

upon the whole American fiekl. He urged that the cause 
of one colony was the cause of all the colonies, and that it 
was only through united councils that the continent could 
expect to maintain its rights. His great theme from the 
beginning of the controversy had been a union of the 
colonies.! In handling it, he was comprehensive in principle, 
method, and object, looking ever for the better time in the 
future. " Lot us forget," he now wrote to the South-Caro- 
lina patriots, of the non-importation agreement, " there ever 
was so futile a combination, and awaken an attention to our 
first grand object, and shew that we are united in consti- 
tutional principles." 2 Union was his paramount thought. 
The need of it never seemed so great. The method he sug- 
gested was for the patriots in each town or county in every 
colony to hold legal meetings, and choose substantial citizens 
to act as committees of correspondence, with a view to 
secure concert of action ; and for the Massachusetts towns 
to adopt the measure, and then, through the assembly, to 
propose it to the other colonies in the hope that they would 
adopt it.^ 

1 Life of Samuel Adams (by W. V. Wells), ii. 9, who says: "There is scarcely 
any time, from 176-1- to 1774 inclusive, in which we do not find him directing his 
countrymen to a unity of purpose and concert of action among the several prov- 
inces." Wells states (ii. 85) that the motions for committees of correspondence by 
the assembly of 1770 and 1771 were made by Adams. 

2 Adams wrote to Gadsden, Dec. 11, 176G: "I wish there were a union and a 
correspondence kept up among the merchants throughout the continent." — Wells, 
i. 133. He ^^T0te in the "Boston Gazette," Sept. 16, 1771, over the signature of 
" Candidas :" "I have often thought that, in this time of common distress, it would 
be the wisdom of the colonists more frequentl}^ to correspond with and to be more 
attentive to the particular circumstances of each other. . . . The colonies form one 
political body of which each is a member. . . . The liberties of the whole are in- 
vaded : it is therefore the interest of the whole to support each mdividual with all 
their weight and influence." 

3 Adams wrote to Arthur Lee, Nov. 30, 1772: "If our design succeeds, there 
will be an apparent union of sentiments among the people of this province, which 
may spread through the continent." Hutchinson had accurate information of every 
step of the union action of the patriots, though he misrepresented in stating that 
their aim was independence. In letters dated .Ian. 7 and Feb. 18, 1773, he says 
that he had authentic information that it was part of the plan to invite every assem- 
bly on the continent to concur. He makes the same statement in "History of 
Massachusetts," iii. 368. 



264 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

The engine of committees was used in the contests of the 
parliamentarians with the Stuarts.^ It was suggested very 
early in the controversy as a mode to promote union .^ 
Public meetings, towns and assemblies, had chosen them at 
various times, and some were in existence.^ A line of 
remark on their value may be seen for years in private 
letters and the press ; but, owing perhaps to the vacillation 
of the ministry, and their adroitness in avoiding a general 
issue, nothing efficient had been done in the way of a gen- 
eral organization. Hence, while the Tory party, through 
the royal officials, could act as a unit, the Whigs were simply 
opposers of obnoxious measures, acting as local aggressions 
dictated ; and, though imbued with a common sentiment, were 
without the inspiration and power which belong to organic 
life. It was to remedy this defect that Samuel Adams now 
urged the formation of committees of correspondence to 
bring about a union, and thus won the fame of a statesman 
by embodying a great thought at the right time into a wise 
measure. 

At this period Lord Hillsborough was succeeded at the 
head of the American department by Lord Dartmouth, who 
had the reputation of being an amiable and good man, and 
well disposed towards the colonies. Hopes were indulged 
that he might reverse the policy of his predecessor. But this 
policy had deeper roots than personal preferences : it grew 
out of feudal ideas ; and the new secretary was a disciple 
of the school which had these ideas for its platform. He 
looked with unfeigned distrust on the measure of popular 
power exercised by the colonists. He meant that they 
sliould be governed, though he meant to govern them well. 

1 A-dolpluis's History of England, ii. 24. Rushworth's Collections, Part IV., 
vol. i. 652. 

2 See above, p. 162. 

3 Samuel Adams, Nov. 21, 1770, acknowledges the receipt from a committee in 
Charleston, S C, of letters "for the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Connecticut, and 
New Hampshire," which he forwarded "as soon as possible to such gentlemen in 
the respective places worthy so excellent a character," which indicates that he did 
not know of any committees to send them to. 



EOYAL INSTRUCTIONS AND PARTY ORGANIZATION. 265 

He had a paternal desire to do for them, joined to a repug- 
nance to recognizing a polity which fostered the capacity to 
do for themselves. If he did not originate, he certainly did 
not hesitate to send out the worst Royal Instruction that 
was issued in the king's name. 

A great controversy was going on in Massachusetts, grow- 
ing out of the refusal of Governor Hutchinson to accept a com- 
pensation for his service from the legislature, and his accept- 
ing it from the imperial treasury, when Lord Hillsborough 
directed that the salaries of the judges and the subordinate 
officers of the courts should be provided for in a similar 
way ; and all doubts were removed as to the position of 
Lord Dartmouth, by his advising (August, 1772) the local 
officials that the king had the right to make such provision 
for the salaries of these officials. " Tlie judges and sub- 
alterns," Josiah Quincy, Jr., now said in the press, "have 
got salaries from Great Britain. Is it possible the last 
movement should not move us and drive us, not to despera- 
tion, but to our duty ? The blind may see, the callous must 
feel, the spirited will act." ^ The towns, in line upon line, 
were urged to express their sentiments on this new violation 
of old customs in instructions to their representatives. " Let 
us," an appeal runs, " now unite like one band of brothers 
in the noblest cause, look to Heaven for assistance, and 
He who made us free will crown our labors with suc- 
cess." ^ 

Samuel Adams selected this instruction as the occasion for 
rousing the patriots, for healing divisions, and for organiza- 
tion, by forming committees of correspondence, saying: 
" This country must shake off its intolerable burdens at all 
events : every day strengthens our oppressors, and weakens 
us. If each town would declare its sense of these matters, 
I am persuaded our enemies would not have it in their power 

1 In Boston Gazette, Sept. 28, 1772. " The last vessels from England tell us that 
the Judges," Sic. 

2 An American in "Boston Gazette," Nov. 2, 1772. 



266 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

to divide US. . . . I wish Ave could rouse the continent." ^ Such 
appeals, however, failed to renew the agitation. Town 
meetings were called in Boston to consider public affairs, 
but they were neither so large nor so enthusiastic as the 
meetings of previous years. Nor were the patriots agreed as 
to what the next step ought to be. This apathy and dis- 
union in the town was typical of the political situation in 
the colonies. A town meeting was called in Faneuil Hall, 
to consider the question of the salaries of the judges. It 
is not necessary here to give the voluminous details of the 
discussions and proceedings. On the second day of Novem- 
ber, 1772, it reassembled by adjournment in Faneuil Hall. 
On that day the " Boston Gazette," with its seven columns 
of politics, was in the glory of a free press, kindling a 
flame for a just cause ; yet the meeting was not large. It 
was, however, respectable in number and in character, and 
continued through the day. In the afternoon, Samuel 
Adams moved " that a committee of correspondence be 
appointed, to consist of twenty-one persons, to state the 
rights of the colonies, and of this province in particular, as 
men, as Christians, and as subjects ; to communicate and 
publish the same to the several towns in this province and to 
the world, as the sense of this town, with the infringements 
and violations thereof that have been, or from time to time 
may be, made; also requesting of each town a free com- 
munication of their sentiments on this subject." Though 
this motion was opposed by some of the patriots, including 
three of the representatives to the General Court, on the 
ground tliat its failure might hurt the cause, yet it was 
adopted. This inaugurated the system of local committees 
of correspondence. They multiplied and widened under 
successive imp<ilses, until they constituted the accredited 
organs of the party that founded the Republic of the United 
States. " They may be called," a contemporary wrot(.,2 

1 Letter to Elbridge Gerry, Oct. 27 and 2!), 1772. Life of Gerry, i. 12. 

2 Francis Uana to Elbridge Geriy, February, 1780. 



ROYAL INSTRUCTIONS AND PARTY ORGANIZATION. 267 

" the corner-stone of our revolution, or new empire." Hence 
the action of Boston proved the beginning of the first 
national party of the country.^ 

The committee was composed of citizens who had ren- 
dered service to the cause, and who coveted no other reward 
than to see their work prosper.^ A few were of so much 
prominence as to entitle them to the position of leaders. 
Thomas Young, a physician, was zealous, wrote with 
force, spoke bold words in the public meeting ; but was so 
much of an extremist as to be a type of the Jacobins of 
that day, and subsequently, when living in Philadelphia, 
proved a rash counsellor. William Molineaux was foremost 
in popular outbreaks and patriotic processions ; a firm, relia- 
ble, efiicient politician. Benjamin Church, a physician, had 
respectable talents, but was of uncertain politics, and prob- 
ably thus early was unfaithful to the cause. James Otis 
could still stir the public mind by his voice and pen ; but at 
times his noble intellect was shattered, and his day for sub- 
stantial service had passed. The records of the committee 
present Joseph Warren and Samuel Adams as the most 
relied on for maturing measures. Warren, now about 
thirty-three, had, for eight years, served the cause with 
great zeal and faithfulness. His standing among the Whigs 
is indicated by his selection as the orator on the celebration 
of the massacre in March, and the prominent part he bore 
in the local action of previous years. He grasped, as by 
intuition, fundamental ideas, and commended them with 
marked ability in the press and public meeting. He had 
genius, courage, and rare social gifts. His generous nature, 
unselfish service, genuine patriotism, and large love for his 
fellow-men, endowed him with the magic spell of influence 

1 Life and Times of Warren, 190. See above, p. 1G5. 

2 The Committee were: James Otis, Samuel Adams, Joseph W\irren, Benjamin 
Church, William Dennie, William Greenleaf, Joseph Greeuleaf, Thomas Young, 
William Towell, Xathaniel Appleton, Oliver Wendell, John Sweetser, Josiah Quincy, 
John Bradford, Richard Boynton, William iMackay, Nathaniel Barber, Caleb Davis, 
Alexander Hill, William Molineaux, Robert Pierpout. 



268 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

and the power there ever is in a noble character. He valued 
the American cause above his life, and was ready to peril 
his all in its behalf. He was the bosom friend of Samuel 
Adams. They thought alike on the political issues, worked 
in harmony in the spirit of self-sacrifice, and in friendship 
and patriotism were not unlike Hampden and Pym. After 
Warren fell at the Battle of Bunker Hill, no one rose to fill 
the place he occupied in the affection of Samuel Adams. ^ 

The committee, at their first meeting, took an oath not to 
divulge their proceedings. They chose James Otis chairman ; 
and for secretary, William Cooper, the town clerk, eminent 
for his public and private virtues and long service. They 
were soon ready to present, in a town meeting (November 
20) called by the selectmen, an elaborate Report on the 
matters submitted to them. It consisted, first, of a state- 
ment of the rights of the colonists, prepared by Adams; 
second, of an enumeration of the violations of rights, drawn 
up by Warren ; third, of a brief letter of correspondence 
with the other towns, written by Church. 

The first part treats of" rights as men, as Christians, and 
as subjects." It specifies the right of man to life, liberty, 
and property ; to choose his country; to worship God accord- 
ing to the dictates of his conscience ; to be taxed only by 
his representatives; to have justice administered under 
standing laws and by judges, independent, as far as possible, 
of prince or people ; to enjoy freedom as the gift of God 
Almighty. It also sets forth the rights of subjects born in 
the realm of England. It announces the equality of all men 
before the luw, and it develops at length the idea that con- 
sent is the just basis of law. 

The second part enumerates the violations of these rights 
by Royal Instructions and acts of parliament, under ten 
heads. Among the specifications are the assumption of the 

1 Wells's Life of Adams, iii. 122. Jefferson, in a letter dated July 4, 1775. 
names, of the killed in the Battle of Bunker Hill, "Pr. Warren, who seems to have 
been immensely valued at the North." 



EOTAL INSTRUCTIONS AND PARTY ORGANIZATION. 269 

right to tax the colonies without the consent of the people, 
and to legislate for them in all cases whatever; the inva- 
sion of trial b}^ j^i'^'y? hy establishing courts of admiralty ; 
and acts prohibiting the manufacture of certain articles. 
These violations are presented with the remark that they 
could not fail " to attract the attention of all who consider 
themselves interested in the happiness &nd freedom of man- 
kind in general, and of this continent and province in 
particular." 

The third part — a brief letter addressed to the towns — 
commends the matters presented in the Report as of such 
great and lasting moment as to involve the fate of all their 
posterity, and solicits a free communication of sentiment 
from each town. It closes with the suggestion that, if the 
towns concurred in the opinion that the rights of the colonists 
and the measures pointed out as subverting them were prop- 
erly stated, it would be doubtless thought of the utmost im- 
portance that all should stand as one man to recover and 
support them. 

This Report, after long deliberation, was adopted. Six 
hundred copies were ordered to be printed in a pamphlet, 
and a copy was directed to be sent to every town in the 
province. A copy was also sent to prominent Whigs in 
other colonies. 

This paper was the most radical exposition of rights and 
grievances — the most systematic presentation of the Amer- 
ican cause — that had been adopted by a public meeting. 
It covered well-nigh the whole ground of natural and con- 
stitutional rights. It gave to principles, which had been 
held as abstractions, a practical significance. It considered 
the relations of man not only as a citizen, but as a Christian, 
and claimed for him that equality which is the cardinal 
principle of Christianity. It claimed for him, under law, 
the position to which he is entitled, — the right to make the 
laws under which he lives, to select his field of labor and 
enjoy its fruits, and thus claimed fair play for the industrial 



270 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

energy wliich has contributed so much to the growth and 
glory of the country. Its bold theory, incisive criticism, 
and solid reasoning were admirably calculated to strengthen 
and direct public opinion. ^ 

The committee, as they sent out this Report, were not dis- 
heartened by the doubts of the Whigs nor the jeers of the 
Tories, by the spectacle presented in the colonies of ill- 
nature and disunion in some quarters, nor by the general 
apathy on the question with the mother-country. The great 
popular leader at their council board in Faneuil Hall, 
Samuel Adams, held the faith that the cause would make 
friends, and rise ; and he infused his spirit into those near 
him. His steps can be traced day by day. A warm patriot 
in Plymouth, James Warren, on getting the Report, wrote to 
Adams : " I shall not fail to exert myself to have as many 
towns as possible meet, but fear the bigger part of them will 
not. They are dead ; and the dead can't be raised without a 
miracle." ^ Adams was prompt to reply: " I am very sorry 
to find any thing in your letter that discovers the least 
approach towards despair. Nil desperandum. That is a 
motto for you and for me. All are not dead ; and where 
there is a spark of patriotic fire, we will rekindle it." ^ To 
another he wrote : " If our enemies should see the flame 
bursting in different parts of the country, and distant from 
each other, it might discourage their attempts to damp and 

1 Sparks (Works of Franklin, iv. 381) remarks that the Report was drawn up 
with as much aliility as freedom. Hutchhison (History of Massachusetts, iii. 368) 
says that the whole frame of it was calculated to strike the colonists with a sense of 
their just claim to independence, and to stimulate them to assert it. The Proceed- 
ings were printed at Boston in a pamphlet of forty-three pages, by Edes & Gill in 
Queen Street, and P. & J. Fleet in Cornhill, and was copied into the " Penns3-lvania 
Journal." It was reprinted in London, with a Preface by Franklin, which may be 
found in the fourth volume of his Works, edited b}- Spai-ks, p. 381. This Preface is 
in the " Mapsachusetts Gazette," May G, 1773. Franklin commended the Report as 
"not the production of a private writer, but the unanimous act of a large American 
city," and remarked: "Tbis nation, and the other nations of Europe, may thereby 
learn, with more ccrtaint)', the grounds of a dissension that possibly may, sooner ol 
later, have consequences interesting to them all." 

2 James Wan-en to Samuel Adams, Dec. 8, 1772. 

8 Samuel Adams to James Warren, December, 1772. 



ROYAL INSTRUCTIONS AND PARTY ORGANIZATION, 271 

quencli it." ^ Tlie originators of this measure did not, as is 
the modern practice, attend the meetings in the country and 
speak in favor of the Report. It was its own orator. The 
patriots of Plymouth were the earhest to follow Boston in 
choosing a committee of correspondence. In a few weeks 
the committees so multiplied, and the expression of senti- 
ment was so inspiring, as to exceed the expectation of the 
friends of the measure. The Boston committee began to 
print in the newspapers the letters and proceedings elicited 
by the Boston Report, which, being often elaborate, proved 
too strong a draft on the space at the command of the con- 
ductors. When eighty replies had been received from the 
towns, it was said that to print the proceedings of all 
towns would be impossible, and to make selections would 
shew partiality, and hence their publication was mostly 
suspended. A card, as by authority, appeared in the news- 
papers, in which it was proposed to print the whole in a 
volume ; and each town, however small, was urged to trans- 
mit its sentiments, in order that its name might be in- 
scribed in the catalogue of fame, and handed down to future 
ages. 2 

A few sentences from these patriotic responses will shew 
the spirit of the whole. One says : " May every town in this 
province and every colony on the continent be awakened to 
a sense of danger, and unite in the glorious cause of liberty." 
Another urges that all " should stand firm as one man 
to support and maintain their just rights and liberties." 
Another prophesied that, " if arbitrary measures were to be 
enforced by fleets and armies, there would be a dissolution 

1 Samuel Adams to Elbvidge Gerrj', Nov. 14, 1772. 

2 "To the Public. It is proposed that all the proceedings of the to'wns in the 
Massachusetts Province, for the preservation of the rights of America, be collected 
and published in a volume, that posterity may know what their ancestors may have 
done in the cause of freedom. It is expected that the inhabitants of cveiy town, 
however small, will at this time publish their sentiments to the world, that their 
names, with those who have already published, may be recorded in this catalogue 
of fame, and handed do-wn to future ages." — Boston Gazette, Jan. 18. 1773. 



272 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

of the union between the mother-country and the colonies, 
to the infinite loss- of the former and the regret of the lat- 
ter; " and another responds : " It becomes us to rely no longer 
on an arm of flesh, but on the arm of that all-powerful God 
who is able to unite the numerous inhabitants of this exten- 
sive country as a band of brothers in one common cause." 
Another counselled the formation of an American union. 
One meeting after another echoed the advice for a congress.^ 
One answer runs : " We cannot be supposed to be acquainted 
with the mystery of court policy, but we look upon our- 
selves able to judge so far concerning our rights as men, as 
Christians, and as subjects of British government, as to 
declare that we apprehend those rights, as settled by the 
good people of Boston, do belong to us, and that we look 
with horror and indignation on the violation of them ; " and 
it expressed a readiness to defend them, if need be, with the 
sword. The people of Boston were warmly and gratefully 
thanked for their efforts. One town says : " It is our 
earnest prayer to Almighty God that they may be animated 
still to proceed, and that they may prosper according to the 
desire of their hearts, and receive the most ample and 
durable rewards." The record of this communing of the 
towns, consisting of addresses, letters, and resolutions, con- 
tains the names of the prominent citizens of localities chosen 
on the committees, an approval of the Report, and soleiim 
pledges to support the cause it set forth. Thus the patriots 
of this province very generally attained an efficient organ- 
ization. 

This movement was commended in the press as the most 
likely of any plan ever devised to establish the rights of all 
the colonies, and thus secure peace and harmony ; for it was 
reasoned, if the ministers see America united and deter- 
mined, they will give up their vain pretensions. Hence 
union was enjoined in passionate terms. It was repre- 

1 Bancroft, vi. 456. 



ROYAL INSTRUCTIONS AND PARTY ORGANIZATION. 273 

Rented to be the voice of Freedom ; ^ that she was saying to 
Americans : — 

" If you're united in one faithful band, 
Like everlasting mountains you shall stand, 
Whose bases rest on God's almighty hand." 

Tlie result of the movement, so far as relates to Massachu- 
setts, was all that could have been expected, and nearly all 
that could have been desired. The Boston committee, cheered 
by the uprising from the pines of Maine and the sands of Ply- 
mouth to the hills of Berkshire, directed the expression of faith 
to be entered on their records, " that Providence would crown 
the efforts of the colonies with success, and thus their gen- 
eration would furnish an example of public virtue worthy 
of the imitation of posterity." This faith, however, was 
not based on what might be attempted or might be done on 
the few thousand square miles of territory that was known 
as Massachusetts, but on the hope that the patriots of the 
other colonies would adopt the organization, and " that it 

1 The following lines appeared in the " Boston Gazette " of Jan. 18, 1773: — 
THE VOICE OF FREEDOM. 

By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall. 

The Immortal Farmer. 

Americans, attend to Freedom's cry ! 
Who scorns her voice deserves in chains to die. 
The sordid imps of tyranny conspire 
To set America's fair realms on fire. 
That I in flames of discord may expire. 
But, O my sons ! should Hell itself combine 
With plundering villains in their fell design, 
If you're united in one faithful band, 
Like everlasting mountains you shall stand, 
Whose bases rest on God's almighty hand ! 
Strong union's blow shall drive them down to the deep, 
As from the wall your broom the cobwebs sweep. 
But, disunited, you will shortly mourn 
Fair Liberty from your embraces torn ; 
And curse the fatal day that you were horn. 
In galling chains for scoundrels you must toil: 
For all your pain no approbating smile! 
In vain you'll then to Heaven for succor cry: 
When Freedom's day of grace is once past by, 
VUe slaves you'll live ; like malefactors die. 
18 



274 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

would extend to every town of any consequence throughout 
America;" in the language of the time, that a continent 
would adopt the organization. 

The spread of the movement, the expression of public 
sentiment, and the indications of a renewal of union, were 
observed with deep interest by Governor Hutchinson of Mas- 
sachusetts, who was the strongest man on the Tory side 
here ; indeed so varied were his talents, and so high was his 
personal character, that he was ranked among the greatest 
and best men in America. The movement seemed to him 
of so formidable a character, that, unless it were checked, it 
must work a total separation of the colonies from Great 
Britain ; and were he to sit still in the place of its origin, 
and do nothing, he might become liable to the charge of con- 
niving at a procedure which he ought to have opposed with 
all the means at his command, and especially as he had 
authentic information that its projectors determined to 
recommend it to the other colonies. On these grounds he 
treated public affairs elaborately in speeches to the General 
Court. He condemned the committees of correspondence 
as not warranted by the Constitution ; declared the doctrines 
set forth by the towns dangerous ; and presented the whole 
question between Great Britain and her colonies in a manner 
uncommonly satisfactory to his political friends. These 
speeches drew from the popular leaders of both branches of 
the legislature searching and triumphant answers, which 
were prepared mainly by James Bowdoin, of the council, 
and Samuel Adams, of the House. The momentous issue, 
close at hand, was foreshadowed in this keen encounter. The 
governor remarked that he knew of no line that could be 
drawn between the supreme authority of parliament and the 
total independence of the colonies, and asked whether there 
was any thing they had to dread more than independence. 
The popular leaders made the grand answer that, if supreme 
authority meant unlimited authority, the subjects of it were 
emphatically slaves, whether residing iu the colonies or 



ROYAL INSTRUCTIONS AND PARTY ORGANIZATION. 275 

Great Britain ; that the powers of the local legislatures and 
of parliament were so far limited that they could not make 
orders and laws violative of such fundamentals as Magna 
Charta and the Bill of Rights ; that drawing the line between 
the supreme authority of parliament and total independence 
was a profound question, of very great consequence to the 
other colonies, and not to be proposed without their consent 
in a general Congress ; and that there was more reason to 
dread the consequence of absolute power, whether exercised 
by a nation or by a monarch, than total independence. This 
uncommonly able presentation of both sides of the question 
between England and the colonies was circulated in the 
newspapers and in pamphlets,^ and gave additional signifi- 
cance to the organization of committees of correspondence. 
The course of Hutchinson was not approved by the minis- 
ters ; while the dignity and conclusiveness of the answers of 
the legislature were warmly commended by the patriots 
throughout the colonies, and are enduring monuments of 
American statesmanship. 

Meantime the movement of the towns in Massachusetts 
attracted more and more attention in the other colonies.^ The 



1 Hutchinson's first speech bears date Jan. 6, 1773, — the first day of the session. 
He thus (Letter, March 10, 1773) describes the situation at that time: "The con- 
tagion that had begun in Boston had spread through one-third of the towns in the 
province;" and in a letter, June .14, 1773, he sa3''s: "I had the fullest evidence of 
a plan to engage the colonies in a confederacy against the authority of parliament. 
The towns of this province were to begin ; the assembly to confirm their doings and 
to invite the other colonies to join." His speech appeared in the "Massachusetts 
Gazette " of January 7. The reply of the House to this speech is dated Januarj'^ 27, 
and is in the "Massachusetts Gazette " of February 4. The second speech of the 
Governor is dated February 16, and is in the " Massachusetts Gazette" of February 
22. The reply of the House is dated March 2, and is in the journals of the 4th. The 
papers were very able. On the authorship of them, see the elaborate note in Wells's 
"Life of Adams," ii. 31. 

2 A letter in the "Boston Gazette," Jan. 25, 1773, from Philadelphia, says: 
"Your town meeting's resolves begin to excite the attention of the people of these 
parts." The issue of March 18 says that the "Pennsylvania Journal" contained 
"the votes and proceedings of the to\vn, with marginal notes supposed to be the 
Farmer." The "News Letter" (Torj-) of April 1 says: "These votes were never 
published in any paper of this town, nor the names of the committee of corres- 
pondence." 



276 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Boston Report was printed in full in Southern newspapers. 
" It breathes the true spirit of liberty," wrote Richard Henry 
Lee ; ^ and it was said, " When a general state of quiescence 
seemed to })revail over the whole empire, when patriotism 
seemed expiring, the noble efforts of the towns, and the per- 
severance with which they pursued the object of having 
tlieir violated rights redressed, gave sensible pleasure to the 
friends of freedom." ^ But the patriots did not choose com- 
mittees of correspondence. It was said in Boston, " They 
are still and quiet at the South, and at New York they laugh 
at us." 2 The Governor thought that his condemnation of 
the committees had checked their progress in the province, 
and hoped it would prevent \he spread of the organization 
to the other colonies.^ In fact the issue on Royal Instruc- 
tions, as applied to the salaries of officials in Massachusetts, 
was too near an abstraction to stir elsewhere the popular 
feeling. Passionate words were not enough. The general 
apathy continued. A case of violated right bearing on the 
people of all the colonies was needed. 

Lord Dartmouth supplied the want in a fresh Royal In- 
struction, dated the 4th of September, 1772, but not made 
public until four months later. It was directed to tlie 
Governor of Rhode Island. It created, under the sign 
manual of the king, a commission to hold its sessions in that 
colony, and to inquire into the circumstances of the burning 
of His Majesty's schooner " Gaspee." This commission was 

1 Richard Henry Lee, Feb. 13, 1773, in a letter to Thomas Cuphing, sa3-s that 
he had received the pamphlet, and that he should have it printed in the "Virginia 
Gazette." 

2 Letter of S. H. Parsons, ot" Rhode Island, March 3, 1773. He dwelt on the 
New-England confederacy of 1643, and suggested an annual meeting of commis- 
sioners of the colonies. Arthur Lee, Letter to Joseph Reed, Feb. 18, 1773 (Life of 
Reed, vol. i. 47). 

s .lolin Adams's Works, ii. 305. 

* Hutchinson, Feb. 23, 1773, wrote: "I have stopped the progress of the towns 
for the present; and I think I have stopped the prosecution of another part of the 
.sciienie, which was for the assembly to invite every other assembly upon the continent 
to assent to the same principles. This part has been acknowledged to me by the 
Speaker (Thomas Gushing), who is in all these measures." — Letter Books. 



ROYAL INSTRUCTIONS AND PARTY ORGANIZATION. 277 

composed of the chief justices of New York, New Jersey, 
and Massachusetts, the judge of admiralty of Massachusetts, 
and tlie Governor of Rhode Island. It was instructed that 
the offence was high treason, or levying war against the 
king ; and was directed to order the arrest of the parties 
charged with this crime, together with the witnesses ; and 
to call upon Lieutenant-General Gage, the commander of 
the British army in America, for assistance, if needed, who 
was instructed to despatch a military force into this colony 
wlicnever the commission should apply for it, in order to 
carry out the object of their appointment. The commis- 
sion was also instructed to deliver the parties thus arrested 
to Admiral Montagu, commander of the naval force, who 
was ordered to send them to England. 

This was a bold Royal Instruction. It violated the funda- 
mental of trial by jury, which, it was now said in the press, 
distinguished the English from all the nations of the earth. ^ 
It affected the personal liberty of the individual, and bore 
alike on all the colonies. The army and the navy were 
placed at the disposition of an imposing tribunal, to insure 
its execution. The contemplated action lacked no element 
of completeness to render it a general issue. It was the 
culmination of this grievance of Royal Instructions. It 
stands out among the events of the time in the importance 
of a proximate cause. 

Several patriots of Rhode Island sent extracts from this 
instruction to Samuel Adams, and asked his advice ; who, 
after consultation with a few friends, sent a reply recom- 
mending the Rhode-Island patriots to send a circular to the 
other colonies calling for assistance ; remarking that the en- 
forcement by British troops of this enormous claim of power 
might cause a most violent political earthquake, and that the 
commission ought to awaken the colonies which had been 
too long dozing on the brink of ruin. He repeated himself 
as he wrote : "It should again unite them in one bond. 

1 This was said of the trial by jury in the "Boston Gazette." 



278 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

Had that union which once happily subsisted been pre- 
served, the conspirators against our common rights would 
never have ventured upon such bold attempts. It has ever 
been my opinion that an attack upon the liberties of one 
colony is an attack on the liberties of all; and therefore, 
in this instance, all should be ready to yield assistance to 
Rhode Island." He communicated the Instruction to the 
" Boston Gazette," ^ when the patriots in different quarters 
denounced the commission, compared it to the star-chamber 
courts of the old country, and pronounced the trial by jury 
the great barrier of their lives and liberties. They averred 
that trial by one's peers was guaranteed by the Constitution ; 
and that whoever attempted to alter or invade this funda- 
mental principle, by which the liberties of the people have 
been secured from time immemorial, is a declared enemy to 
the welfare and happiness of the king and the state. Arthur 
Lee, then in London, who could not have seen this blaze of 
the American press, pronounced the commission " the most 
dreadful violation of their liberties that could be offered ; 
big with every evil that could be dreaded." This spontane- 
ous burst of indignation by a free people was the effect " of 
a sight of chains, and rattling them before putting them on." 
The commission ^ held its first session in Newport, in 

1 Boston Gazette of Jan. 4, 1773. Lord Dartmouth says that the destruction of the 
" Gaspee " is " considered in no other light than as an act of high treason, or levying 
war against the king. And in order that you may have all proper advice and 
assistance in a matter of so great importance, His Majesty has thought fit, with the 
advice of his privy council, to issue his royal commission, under the great seal of 
Great Britain, nominating yourself, and the chief justices of New York, New 
Jersey, and Massachusetts Bay, together with the judge of the Vice Admiralty 
Court established at Boston, to be His Majesty's commissioners for inquiry into and 
making report to His Majesty of all the circumstances relating to the attacking, 
plundering, and burning the "Gaspee" schooner. The king trusts that all persons 
in the colony will pay a due respect to the royal commission." 

- The commission was composed of Joseph Wantai, the Governor of Rhode 
Island; Chief Justices Daniel Horsemanden of New York, Frederick Smythe of New 
Jersey, Peter Oliver of Massachusetts; and Robert Auchmuty, judge of the Vice- 
Admiralty Court at Boston. They met at the State House in Newport, Jan. 5, 1773. 
The commission requested the presence of Admiral Montagu, who, on the 14tli of 
January, advised the commission that he was at Newport, and had hoisted his flag 



ROYAL INSTRUCTIONS AND PARTY ORGANIZATION. 279 

January, 1TT3, and drew all eyes on Rhode Island, which, 
for a time, seemed destined to be the theatre of great events. 
The Royal Instructions were laid before its assembly by 
Governor Wanton, but that body did not issue a circular 
calling for aid ; and when the chief justice of the court, 
Stephen Hopkins, a member also of the assembly, rose in his 
place and asked for directions how to act, this body advised 
him, when a case arose, to use his discretion. He declared 
that he would not give an order to apprehend any person 
to be transported for trial. This tamcness provoked Na- 
thaniel Greene, the future general, to say that the assembly 
appeared to have lost its ancient public virtue, and to have 
sunk into an acquiescence in ministerial mandates.^ 

The Virginia House of Burgesses now (March 4, 1773) 
convened. As nothing particularly exciting had occurred 
in that coloii}^ for a considerable time, the people seemed 
to fall into a state of insensibility to their political situa- 
tion ; but the Rhode-Island court of inquiry demanded 
attention. A few of the younger members, Patrick Henry, 
Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Francis L. Lee, 
Dabney Carr, and others, met at the Raleigh Tavern to con- 
sult on the state of things. " All," Jefferson says, " were 
sensible that the most urgent of all measures was that of 
coming to an understanding with all the other colonies to 
consider the British claims as a common cause to all, and to 
produce a unity of action ; and for this purpose that a com- 
mittee of correspondence in each colony would be the best 
instrument for intercommunication." ^ This is exact. The 
method is named as though it were an old idea. One of this 
band had urged such a plan, and they had before them the fa- 
mous Boston Report. They agreed upon a set of resolves, 
and Jefferson was requested to present them to the assembly. 

on board the "Lizzard." The movements of the commissioners -were related in the 
newspapers. The documents were faithfully gathered by Hon. William E. Staples, 
in the " History of the Destruction of the 'Gaspee,' " printed in 1845. 

1 Greene's Life of N athaniel Greene," i. 43. 

2 Jefferson's Memoir, p. 4, Ed. of 1830. 



280 THE EISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

But he desii-ed tliat Dabney Carr, a new member, should do 
this, iu order that his great worth and talents might be 
made known to the House. Accordingly Carr, a brilliant 
young lawyer, on the 12th of March moved the resolves, in 
a speech imbued with feeling, imagination, and patriotism, 
which was listened to with delight. He was followed by Rich- 
ard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry, in impressive speeches. 
Tiie resolutions were unanimously adopted. Eleven mem- 
bers were designated a committee of correspondence to com- 
municate with the other colonies, to obtain authentic infor- 
mation of the doings of the administration, and especially 
respecting the Rhode-Island court of inquiry, and to report 
the result to the Burgesses. ^ The genial Botetourt was dead. 



1 An account of the action of Virginia was sent by Benjamin Harrison of that 
colony to William Palfrey of Boston (Life, p. 378), with a letter dated March 14. 
An extract from this letter and the resolves were printed in the " Boston Gazette " 
of April 12, under the heading of "Boston, April 8," probably the day they were 
received. The editor says the papers alluded to in the letter were the votes and 
proceedings of Boston, and newspapers containing the Governor's speeches and the 
answers of the two Houses. The following was the whole communication : — 

I received the papers you sent me. and am much obliged to you for them. Our 
assembly sitting a few days after, they were of use to us. You will see by the enclosed 
resolutions the triie sentiments of this colony, and that we are endeavoring to brmg 
our sister colonies mto the strictest union with us, that we may resent in one body any 
steps that may be taken by the administration to deprive any one of us of the least 
particle of our rights and liberties. We should have done more, but we could procure 
nothing but newsjjaper accounts of the proceedings in Rhode Island. I hope we shall 
not be kept thus ui the dark for the future, and that we shall have from the dhFerent 
committees the earliest intelligence of any motion that may be made by the tyrants in 
England to carry their infernal jmrpose of enslaving us into execution. I dare venture 
to assure you the strictest attention will be given on our part to these grand points. 

Ill the House of Burgesses in Virgmiia, March, 1773. 

"Wliereas the minds of His Majesty's faithful subjects in this colony have been much 
disturbed by various rumors and reports of proceedings tending to deprive them of 
their ancient legal and constitutional riglits; 

And whereas the afi'airs of the colony are frequently connected with tliose of Great 
Britain, as well as of tlie neijjhboring colonies, which renders a communication of senti- 
nienti' necessary: in order therefore to remove the uneasiness and to quiet the minds of 
the people as well as for the other good inirposes above mentioned, — 

Be it liesolved, That a standing committee of correspondence and inquiry be ap- 
pointed, to consist of eleven persons, — viz., the Honorable Peyton Randolph, Esquire, 
Robert Carter Nicholas, Richard Bland, Richard Hciu-y Lee, Benjamin Harri.son, Ed- 
mund Pendleton, Patrick Henry, Dudley Diggos, Dabney Carr, Archibald Carey, and 
Thomas Jeftcrson, Esquires. — any six of wliom to be a committee, whose business it 
shall be to obtain the most early and authentic intelligence of all such acts and reso- 
lutions of the British parliament, or proceedings of administration, as may relate to oi 



ROYAL INSTRUCTIONS AND PARTY ORGANIZATION. 281 

His successor, Eaii Dunmore, was a ready instrument of 
arbitrary power. On hearing of these resolves, he dissolved 
the House. The members repaired to the Apollo, and agreed 
upon a circular letter which the speaker, Peyton Randolph, 
was directed to send to the colonies. The foremost in striking 
this key-note of union were JelTerson, who probably penned 
the resolves, and Carr, who moved them in the House. 
They were scholars, brothers-in-law, and bosom friends ; 
and were accustomed to pursue their studies under the 
shade of a favorite oak at Monticello, the beautiful residence 
of Jefferson. Dabney Carr, a few weeks after he rendered 
this noble service, was called to his rest. His friend did 
not follow until after the fulness of honors and of years. 
The mortal remains of both lie side by side under the 
branches where they had pored over Bacon and Coke, and 
indulged in visions of the future glory of their country .1 

The action of Virginia was an inspiration to the cause, 
and especially to the Massachusetts patriots. Their appeal 
for organization had been doing its work four months ; and, 
however gratifying the results might have been within the 
province, their plan had not been adopted in any other, — not 
one town outside of Massachusetts, I think, choosing a 
committee of correspondence.^ The Boston committee, on 
receiving the Virginia resolves, had them printed on a 

affect the British colonies in America, and to l£eep up ami maintain a correspondence 
and communication witli her sister colonies respecting these important considerations, 
aud the result of their proceedings from time to time to lay before this House. 

Resoh-ed, That it be an instruction to the said committee that they do without delay 
inform themselves particularly of the principles and authority on which was consti- 
tuted a court of inquiry, said to have been lately held in Rhode Island, with powers to 
transport persons accused of offences committed in America to places beyond the seas 
to be tried. 

Ecsolved, That the speaker of this House do transmit to the speakers of the dif- 
ferent assemblies of the British colonies on this continent copies of the said resolutions, 
and desire that they will lay them before their respective assemblies, and request them 
to appoint some person or persons of their respective bodies to communicate from time 
to time with the said committee. 

1 IJandall's Life of Jefferson, i. 83. 

2 Hutchinson's "History of Massachusetts," vol. iii. p. 392, says that the first 
notice which appears of the Boston resolves was by the assembly of Virginia. 



282 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

broadside, and sent (April 8) to all the towns, " to gladden 
the hearts of all who are friends of liberty." The towns, 
in their enthusiasm, were prompt to pronounce the resolves 
" worthy the imitation of every house of general assembly 
on the continent." ^ The Boston committee, by the hands 
of Samuel Adams, in a letter to the Virginia committee, 
expressed their gratitude for this action, their veneration for 
that most ancient colony, and their unfeigned esteem for its 
committee. " This," Adams said, " is indeed a poor return. 
1 hope you will have the hearty concurrence of every assem- 
bly on the continent. It is a measure which will be attended 
with great and good consequences ; " and he asked the 
significant question, " Whether the establishment of com- 
mittees among the several tovv^ns of every colony would tend 
to promote that general union upon which the security of the 
whole depended ? " ^ or whether the plan inaugurated by the 
towns of Massachusetts might not be more effectual ? Both 
plans were designed to be carried out through legal channels, 
and both were designed to be inter-colonial in their range. 
They differed widely in their practical working. In the Vir- 
ginia plan, the immediate constituents of the committee were 
the assembly ; in the Massachusetts plan, they were the legal 
voters : in one plan the unit was the colony ; in the other 
the unit was the individual. 

The circular of Peyton Randolph was brief, expressing 
the hope that the measure of corresponding committees 
would prove of general utility if the other colonies should 
see fit to adopt it. Benjamin Harrison wrote that the 
object to bring the colonies into the strictest union was, 
that they might resent an infringement on their rights in 
one body. Richard Henry Lee wrote : " Full scope is given 
to a large and thorough union of the colonics, though our 
language is so contrived as to prevent the enemies of 

1 Resolves of the town of Woburn, April 24, 1773. 

2 Samuel Adams to R. H. Lee. — Life of R. H. Lee, i. 87. 



ROYAL INSTRUCTIONS AND PARTY ORGANIZATION. 283 

America from hurrying this transaction into a vortex of 
treason." 

The journals soon announced the assemblies, which 
adopted the " plan of union proposed by the patriotic House 
of Burgesses," by choosing committees. The Rhode-Island 
assembly assured the Burgesses they were convinced that a 
firm union of the colonies was absolutely necessary for the 
preservation of their ancient constitutional rights. The 
Connecticut assembly were of opinion that the reasons given 
by the Burgesses were weighty and important in matter and 
design, and calculated to produce the happy effect of securing 
their ancient legal and constitutional rights ; and a select com- 
mittee (Aug. 10, 1773) hoped " to cultivate and strengthen 
that harmony and union among all the English colonies on 
the continent of America, which daily appeared to them 
more and more necessary to preserve and secure the safety, 
peace, prosperity, and happiness of the whole." The New- 
Hampshire assembly pledged that colony to " co-operate 
with her sister colonies to recover and perpetuate the liber- 
ties of America," and gratefully acknowledged the prudence 
and vigilance of Massachusetts and Virginia, in so early 
taking and sounding the American alarm. The Massachu- 
setts assembly poured forth gratitude to the Burgesses for 
vigilance, wisdom, and firmness in support of American 
rights and liberties. The South-Carolina assembly thanked 
the Burgesses for their steady attention to American inter- 
ests, and expressed a readiness to co-operate in a measure 
dictated by such wise counsels, and directed to such laudable 
ends. In this spirit five assemblies promptly responded to 
the action of Virginia. Their resolutions, in stating the 
object of the committees, were generally a transcript of 
those of Virginia ; and were sent to the assemblies in 
circular letters, usually signed by the speakers. Thus six 
colonies, under the general issue created by the last Royal 
Instruction, exchanged assurances of co-operation, and, as 



284 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Jefferson cliaracterizes their action, appointed "committees 
of national correspondence." ^ 

The hearty welcome of this action, and the earnest lan- 
guage of the popular leaders, shew how much it was desired 
that the remaining seven colonies should join in the plan of 
deliverance, which, it was said, " Heaven itself seemed to 
have dictated to the noble Virginians." ^ No recommenda- 

1 The dates of the action of the assemblies named in the text are as follows : — 
Rhode Island, May 7, 1773. The resolves are in the "Massachusetts Gazette" 

of May 20. The committee were Stephen Hopkins, Moses Brown, John Cole, 
William Bradford, Henry Marchant, and Henry Ward. The speaker, Metcalf 
Bowler, transmitted. May 15, the resolves to the assemblies. His letter is iu the 
"Massachusetts Letter Book." He read to the assemblj' in August letters fi'om the 
speakers of the assemblies of the other colonies, in reply, "concurring with the 
resolves lately entered into by the glorious House of Burgesses of Virginia." — 
Massachusetts Gazette, Aug. 30, 1773. 

Connecticut, May 21. The committee were Ebenczer Silliman, William Wil- 
liams, Benjamin Payne, Samuel Holden Parsons, Nathaniel \\'ales, Silas Deane, 
Samuel Bishop Joseph Trumbull, Erastus Woolcott. The resolves are iu the 
"Massachusetts Gazette," June 17. Ebenezer Silliman, May 29, transmitted the 
resolves to the other colonies. — Massachusetts Letter Book. A select committee to 
correspond were William Williams, Silas Deane, Benjamin Payne, and Joseph 
Trumbull, who signed the letter of August 10, 1773, cited in the text. 

New Hampshire chose May 27. Its committee were John AVentworth, John 
Sherburne, William Parker, John Giddinge, Jacob Sheafe, Christopher Tappan, and 
John Pickering. The notice of the action is in the "Massachusetts Gazette," 
May 31. 

Massachusetts, May 28. The committee were Thomas Gushing, Saniuel Adams, 
John Hancock, William Phillips, William Heath, Joseph Hawley, James. Warren, 
Richard "Derby, Jr., Elbridge Gerry, Jerathmeil Bowers, Jedediah Foster, Daniel 
Leonard, Thomas Gardner, Jonathan -Greenleaf, and James Prescoti. The resolves 
are in the Boston journals of May 31. "-— 

South Carolina, July 8. The resolve reads "that Mr. Speaker and any eight of 
the other members of the standing committee of correspondence be a committee 
... to correspond" with the committees appointed by the House of Burgesses or 
to be appointed by other "sister colonies." The reply to the Burgesses is signed by 
Raw. Lowndes, Speaker. The resolves are in the "Boston Gazette," Aug. 9, 
1773. 

2 Solon, in "New Hampshire Gazette," June 18, 1773. He adds: "0 Ameri- 
cans! embrace this plan of union as your life. It will work out your political salva- 
tion." The same paper, July 2, has the following, "inserted by desire," from the 
"Providence Gazette: " — 

TO THE AMERICANS. 

The Union of the Colonies, which is now taking Place, is big with the most impor- 
tant Advantages to this Continent. From tliis Union will result our Security from all 
foreign enemies; for none will dare to invade us against the combined Force of these 



ROYAL INSTRUCTIONS AND PARTY ORGANIZATION. 285 

tion of it was more generous than that of the patriots of 
Massachusetts ; nor was any action more prompt and efificient 
in following this lead than that of the Boston committee. 
They sent, in June, another circular to the towns, in which 
they urged that by unity they would be able to defeat the 
violators of their rights, that all private views ought to 
be renounced, and the good of the whole become the single 
object of pursuit ; for the period called for the strictest con- 
currence of sentiment and action by every individual of the 
province and continent.^ The call for a congress came up 
from several quarters. It was said in the Fifth of March 
oration, in Boston, that a future congress would be the 
future salvation of America.^ A Philadelphian proposed 
that annually, or as often as occasion might require, the 
colonies should send deputies to form a court like that of 
the Amphictyons, which managed the general affairs of the 
Athenians.^ Samuel Adams thought that a congress, and 
then an assembly of the States, was no longer a mere fiction 
in the minds of a political enthusiast.^ Ezra Stiles judged 
that the extensive alarm which the Royal Instruction creat- 
ing the commission gave the colonies on the continent 
occasioned the Virginia resolutions, and predicted that the 
committees chosen by the assemblies would terminate in a 

Colonies, nor will a British Parliament dare to attack our Liberties, when we are 
united to defend them. The United Americans may bid Defiance to all their open as 
well as secret foes ; therefore let it be the Study of all to make the Union of the 
Colonies firm and perpetual, as it will be the great Basis for Liberty and ev6ry public 
Blessing in America. In this Union every Colony will feel the Strength of the Whole; 
for if one is invaded. All will unite their Wisdom and Power in her Defence. In this 
Way the weakest will become strong, and America will soon be the Glory of the World, 
and the Terror of the wicked Oppressors among the Nations. We cannot forbear 
triumphing in the idea of the great Things that will soon be accomplished in this 
Country, and the rapid spread of American Glory. But it is highly probable that our 
most exalted ideas fall far sliort of what will one day be seen in America 

Sidney. 

1 .Journals of the Boston Committee, June 23, 1773. 

2 Oration of Benjamin Church, March 5, 1773. 

8 This, perhaps the most definite of the propositions, is found in the "Boston 
Gazette " of March 1.5, 1773, in a piece of about five columns, entitled "Proposals 
for the Good of the Colonies, by a Philadelphian." 

* Letter to Arthur Lee, April 9, 1773. 



286 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

general congress.^ The enthusiasm of the hour may be said 
to have culminated in the thought that, by union. America 
would soon be the glory of the world, and the terror of 
wicked oppressors among the nations. 

The " new union " and its embodiment in corresponding 
committees was closely watched by royal officers, and largely 
dwelt upon in their letters. It was plain that the strict 
execution of the instruction- creating the court of inquiry 
would bring on a crisis. There was the vacillation of doubt 
among them rather than the decision and energy of con- 
fidence. The Governor, though of proclivities that carried 
him ultimately to the side of government, hesitated in 
executing the Royal Instruction ; the chief justice declined 
to order arrests on the presentations made to him ; the 
commission did not call for a military force. The Vir- 
ginia resolves " struck a greater panic into the minis- 
ters " than any thing that had occurred since the Stamp 
Act.2 It is enough here to state results. The commission 
held a final session in June, when they agreed upon an 
elaborate report, in which they conceded that the com- 
mander of the " Gaspee," in detaining vessels indiscrimi- 
nately, exceeded the bounds of his duty, and did this out of 
a reprehensible zeal. The commission then adjourned.^ 
The design of transporting Americans to England was 
given up. This was the close of the issue of Royal Instruc- 
tions. It was their mission to rouse a spirit which inaugu- 
rated the organization of the popular party. 

The patriots had cast the asgis of their inchoate union 
over the personal liberty of Americans, by securing trial 
l>y j^^iy- They triumphed when less than half the assem- 
blies had chosen committees of correspondence. The 

1 Letter (1773) in Life of Stiles, p. 108. 

2 Letter of William Lee, of London, in Campbell's "History of Virginia," 570. 

8 The commission adjourned June 23. The Report is dated the 22d. A letter 
dated Oct. 8, 1773, in the "Massachusetts Gazette," Oct. 28, says: "The Rhode- 
Island commission was a measure resolved on before Lord Dartmouth was in office; 
and, I am well informed, the issue of it has been very acceptable to him." 



ROYAL INSTRUCTIONS AND PARTY ORGANIZATION. 287 

other assemblies — some because they did not happen to 
meet — did not choose until another issue arose. In fact 
political agitation subsided, in the spring, when it was 
seen that the arbitrary commission did not act ; and the 
public mind became calm when it was abandoned. The 
publication of a collection of letters, sent by American 
loyalists to their friends in England, revealing their agency 
in promoting an obnoxious policy, and returned by Franklin, 
produced a spasm of indignation ; but this soon passed off. 
The tax on tea was a dead letter. Ordinary Royal Instruc- 
tions proved an insufficient basis upon which to carry on agita- 
tion. The more ardent among the popular leaders, who felt 
that acquiescence in these instructions as law was criminal, 
commented severely, in the spring and summer of 1773, on 
the silence observed in some quarters, and the timidity in 
others.^ The Tories exulted in the general apathy. They 
saw in the non-action a natural relapse, and rejoiced that 
things were returning to their old channel.^ 

As Samuel Adams reviewed the events of this period 
about three years later, he remarked that, notwithstanding 
all that had been said and done, real union had not been 
reached. It is easy now ,to see that this was the fact. The 
cause needed an impulse other than form or personal leader- 
ship could give. It needed another aggression, something 
startling, that should stir feeling, quicken the public pulse, 
and create a popular tide, which in the nature of a providen- 
tial current should bear the popular party onward beyond 
the possibility of a reaction. It was soon supplied by 
George III. in the Tea Act. It was the case over again of 
Joseph and his brethren : their design was evil, but it was 
overruled for good. 

1 Samuel Adams, April 9, 1773, wrote to R. H. Lee that the timidity of some 
colonies and the silence of others were discouraging. 

2 Massachusetts Gazette (Tory), April 16, 1773. The writer says: " It is curious 
to recollect how we met together in various towns, how we made speeches, how we 
threatened, how we drew up resolutions, how we printed them, and wrote essays on 
liberty and railed against impostors, and burnt effigies, and drank toasts. After this, 
things returned to the old channel, and we heard no more about Liberty. Some sup- 
pose she died about that time." 



288 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

The popular party were prepared to take advantage of 
such an impulse. In meeting the Stamp Act, they evoked 
a sentiment of union ; in meeting the Townshend Acts, they 
created and embodied an intelligent public opinion ; and 
Royal Instructions had produced the fruit of an organiza- 
tion in the committees of correspondence, municipal and 
legislative, ready to widen out to the breadth of a common 
union. In this action Massachusetts and Virginia, like two 
sagacious leaders, went hand m hand. The venerated 
characters whose names are connected with this step had 
nothing narrow or selfish in their plans or objects. They 
embraced common principles. They were impelled onwiard 
by great ideas. They aimed to unite all of similar political 
faith, wherever they were, in the bonds of a common brother- 
hood. 

So much has been written about these famous committees, 
and especially on the credit due to Massachusetts and Vir- 
ginia in forming them, that nothing need be added.^ The 
narrative now brought down to the month of August, 1773, 
shews the results effected under the issue of Royal Instruc- 
tions. 

The action of the House of Burgesses followed a season 
of mutual crimination and disunion ; and the prompt accep- 
tance of its invitation by five assemblies was an earnest of 
harmony and future concert. This, contrasted with the 
recent division and strife, was like the passage from death 
to life. Its salutary effect on the cause is attested by 
abundant contemporary evidence ; and it ever afterwards 
occupied a high place in the minds of the actors as a spring 

1 The statements by Wirt (1817) in his "Life of Patrick Henry," as to the 
origin of committees of correspondence, wei'e criticised in the " North-American 
Review" of March, 1818; and interesting details on the subject may be found in 
Tucker's "Life of JefTerson," i. 52-55, printed in 1837, in Kennedy's "Memoirs of 
Wirt," 1849, and Randall's "Life of Jefterson," 1858, vol. i. pp. 78 to 81. Randall 
remarks: " We will not aver that all the colonies acted exactly alike in the opening 
of that [Revolutionarj'] struggle. But it is Sfife to say that the Whigs in all the 
colonies/e// substantially alike." I have endeavored, in this chapter and the next, 
to relate how they acted in the emergencies that arose. 



ROYAL INSTRUCTIONS AND PARTY ORGANIZATION. 289 

of events. Its opponents ascribed to these committees the 
effect " in some measure to defeat and counteract the power 
reserved to the Governor of proroguing and dissolving the 
assemblies," ^ by acting in the recess. These committees, 
however, did not hold conferences with each other, or ^ven 
correspond with each other, during the issue of Royal 
Instructions, with a view to maturing a congress, or indeed 
to any joint action. The design of transporting Americans 
to England for trial being defeated, there was no emergency 
calling for extraordinary effort. They restricted themselves 
to a cordial interchange of circulars and copies of the pro- 
ceedings of their assemblies. Here they stopped. The 
value of the movement, up to this time, was in the moral 
effect of the pledge of union. 

The Boston committee held stated meetings. It kept up 
a correspondence with the committees chosen by other 
towns. It prepared and circulated political matter. It 
matured political measures. It thus performed the service 
which is expected of the committees representing modern 
parties, by aiming to create and guide public sentiment. 
The precise character of the work of the committee is seen 
in its records,^ which are in fine preservation. Much of this 
correspondence — which bears an indelible impress of the 
spirit of the time — has never been printed. The organiza- 
tion extended itself very generally tliroughout the province. 
Thus the popular party here were ready for the varied work 
required by the progress of events, as the Revolution as it 

1 Governor Hutchinson wrote to Lord Dartmouth, July 10, 1773: "Upon the 
same erroneous principles the assemblies of Virginia, of this province, Rhode Island, 
and Connecticut, have appointed their respective committees of correspondence, who 
act in the recess of the courts ; and the like committees are expected from the other 
assemblies when they shall be convened. This in some measure defeats and counter- 
acts the powers reser\'ed to the governors, in what are called the loyal governments, 
of proroguing or dissolving the assembly at pleasure." 

2 The journals and papers of this committee, forming a portion of the rich collec- 
tion of Samuel Adams, are in possession of Mr. Bancroft; and I am indebted to his 
courtesy for a free examination of them. An account of them may be found in the 
preface to volume six of his great history. 

19 



290 THE EISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

went on, in the way of all revolutions, ordained its own 
rules of action. 

The yast territory possessed by Great Britain in America, 
reaching from Canada to Florida, and the prosperity of its 
people, continued to suggest animating speculation. Dr. 
William Smith said it was impossible for an attentive ob- 
server not to behold an empire already planted, which, with 
careful culture, promised to enlarge itself to vast dimensions, 
and to give law as well as happiness to every other part of 
America.^ President Stiles said that it was most firmly 
believed that Providence intended a glorious empire in 
America, which, composed of a people growing up with a 
fervid love of liberty, would become a phenomenon in the 
political world worthy of a very serious attention .2 This 
speculation was indulged in by Whig and by Tory. It 
was sent out from the halls of learning ; it was inscribed on 
the page of history ; and it was spread as on the wings of the 
morning in the press. It was the desire and the hope that 
this empire might be one with Great Britain, in the ideal of 
Americans, — on the principles of universal liberty, and as 
the protector of their individual rights and local self-govern- 
ment. As they dwelt on the prospect of such an empire, 
they exclaimed : " What human imagination can form an 
idea of the dominion and glory to which our nation 
might arrive ! As the rising sun hides the stars, so would 
the British empire eclipse all other nations under heaven." 
This sentiment was so common as to elicit the remark that 
love of the mother-country was the reigning principle that 
animated Americans.^ 



1 Address of William Smith, D.D., Provost of the College and Academy of 
Philadelphia, in behalf of that Seminary, in "Massachusetts Gazette," March 23, 
1772 

2 President Stiles (Life, 1G3) to Mrs. Macaulay. 

8 Boston Gazette, Dec. 23, 1771. "To break off our connection with the parent 
countr)', before the law of self-preservation absolutely obliges us, is a thought we 
never harbor in our breasts. The reigning principle which animates Americans is 
love to Great Britain." 



ROYAL INSTRUCTIONS AND PARTY ORGANIZATION. 291 

But love of liberty under law was the reigning principle. 
Tlie high-toned theories of government, the course of the 
ministry, the arrogance of its champions, its practices with 
the assemblies, its scorn of popular rights, its treatment of 
petitions, tended to weaken the attachment to the mother- 
country. Salient aggressions roused ardent natm^es to utter 
thoughts that were the dawnings of a sentiment of nation- 
ality. ' They nurtured the idea that devotion to the cause 

1 The following citations will shew how continuously the idea of an independent 
nation was presented in the newspapers : — 

Boston Gazette, Jan. 6, 1772. An American writes: " The more eligible course for 
the Americana, and t.liat whicli they will probably take, is to form a government 
of their owni, similar to that of the United Provinces hi Holland, and ofter a free trade 
to all the nations of Europe. . . . If she (Great Britain) still pursues false maxims 
and arbitrary measures, the Americans will soon dissolve their union with Great 
Britain. They have all the advantages for independence, and every temptation to im- 
prove them that ever a peoi)le had." 

A piece dated New Hampshire, June, 1772, says : " If no regard is paid to our united 
complaints, we should be justified in the sight of the world if we sought a remedy 
in another way. I mean set up a government of our own. Independent of Great 
Britain." 

An American in "Boston Gazette," Nov. 2, 1772, says: "The only method that 
promised any prospect of the preservation of freedom was for the people to unite in 
remonstrance to the king, and to say that, unless their liberties were restored whole 
and entire, they would form an independent commonwealth after the example of the 
Dutch Provinces, secure their ports, and offer a free trade to all nations." 

The town of Pembroke (Dec. 28, 1772) said: " If the measures so justly complained 
of . . . were j'ersisted in and enforced by fleets and armies, they must (we think of it 
with pain), they will, in a little time issue in the total dissolution of the union between 
the mother-country and the colonies, to the infinite loss of the former and regret of the 
latter." 

A piece in the " Boston Gazette," Jan. 11, 1773, says : " If the Britons continue their 
endeavors much longer to subject us to their government and taxation, we shall be- 
come a separate f-^'.d. . . . This is as certain as any event that has not already come 
to pass ■' 

A Phi'.adelphian, in a paper copied into the "Boston Gazette, March 15, 1773, pro- 
posed "that all the colonies should unite in a public manifesto, signifying that the 
crown and mother-country have broke their faith with us, and therefore we shall break 
off our connection with them." 

The Cambridge Committee of Correspondence, April, 1773, say: " We trust the day 
is not far distant when our rights and liberties shall be restored to us, or the colonies, 
nnited as one man, will make their most solemn appeal to Heaven, and drive tyranny 
from these northern climes." Cited in Bancroft, v. 456. 

" In " The American Alarm, or the Boetonian Plea," a pamphlet, May, 1773, is the 
following in an address to the king: "The union of the towns in the Province of 
Massachusetts Govcminent shew that they strongly declare their heart and life en- 
gaged lor their rights and liberties; that deputies and congresses of the united prov- 
inces will soon follow unless, &c. ... If the parliament continue these destructive 
plans, . . . the fatal period which we all deprecate cannot be very far distant, when the 
political union between Great Britain and these colonies will be dissolved." 



292 THE RISE OF THE REPUBIJC. 

of justice was a higher obligation than fidelity to the old 
flag when it was used to cover despotic power. They re- 
volved the sapng of a great patriot, that freedom and 
security, under Providence, depended on themselves. ^ They 
reasoned that continued regard of the just complaints of 
the people might have " the valuable tendency to make the 
next eflfort for freedom savor more of that virtue and valor 
for which Englishmen in former ages had been justly re- 
nowned, and might turn the Great People to call on the 
name of the Lord, and to seek a redress of their grievances 
with the spear and lance at that glorious seat of justice 
where Moses brought the Egyptians and Samson the Philis- 
tines." ^ They averred that if the ministry persisted in its 
policy, the Americans would be justified in the eyes of the 
world in forming an independent nation ; that it was morally 
certain this would eventually take place ; that the only 
question was, how long it would be before that event should 
transpire : but by all the signs of the times and appearances 
of things it was very near. " 'Tis not probable that it is at 
the distance of fifteen years." ^ 

The specific demand, however, was for union and a con- 
gress, — the specific object aimed at was a redress of griev- 
ances; for the springs of action were not love for the 
bloody work of revolution or hatred of the mother-country. 
It was reasoned : " Have not the Americans as good a right 
to form a union now as they had during the Stamp Act, 
and as the New-England colonies had during the infancy of 
the country ? And is it not a legal, peaceable, and the most 
likely method of obtaining a full redress of our grievances ? " 

1 The "New-Hampshire Gazette," Jiine 18, 1773, said: " It is in vain for us to 
expect that our liberties in America will be supported by men in Great Britain; and 
it was long since truly said by a great patriot (Hon. Mr. Adams, representative of 
Boston) ' that our freedom and security, under Providence, depended on our- 
selves.' " 

2 Boston Gazette, Oct. 12, 1772. 
8 Boston Gazette, March 2, 1772. 



ROYAL INSTRUCTIONS AND PARTY ORGANIZATION. 298 

And it was urged that such a union, firm and perpetual, 
would be a sure foundation for freedom, and the great basis 
for every public blessing. AU were enjoined "to prepare 
to act as joint members of the grand American Common- 
wealth." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

How Events developed the American Union, and How the 
Demand for a General Congress was accompanied by Pledges 
TO abide by its Decisions. 

August, 1773, to August, 1774. 

The popular party so effectually resisted arbitrary power as 
embodied in Royal Instructions, that the ministry abandoned 
their design of transporting Americans to England for trial 
through the Rhode-Island commission, and before half the 
assemblies had chosen committees of correspondence ; when 
political agitation sul^sided. It was soon renewed by the 
Tea Act, and intensified by the Boston Port Act, when 
there was a general development of union. This was em- 
bodied in committees of correspondence, a movement for 
a congress, and pledges to make its decisions a rule of 
action. 

The people were generally prosperous in business affairs, 
and desired peace. A town under the lead of zealous "Whigs 
voted that the union between the colonies and Great Britain 
was not worth a rush ; occasionally a writer urged in an 
essay in the newspapers that the only way to place American 
liberty on a firm foundation was to form an independent 
nation : but these were the views of extremists, and were 
generally disavowed. The great body of the Whigs united 
with the Tories in prizing this union as of incalculable value. 
They regarded themselves as fellow-subjects, with Britons. 
They looked on the people of both countries as being one in 
the essential elements of nationality, political ideas, language, 
and the Christian religion ; and one in the love of a noble lit- 



THE TEA ACT AND AMERICAN UNION. 295 

erature and precious historic memories. They kindled at the 
sight of the old flag and at thoughts of the mother-land, — 

"A laud of just and old renown, 
Where freedom broadens slowly down 
Frona precedent to precedent; " 

and it was the prevailing sentiment that a recognition of co- 
equal rights would enable the people of both countries to live 
long under the same flag. The popular leaders averred that 
they did not deny the sovereignty, but opposed the adminis- 
tration. They did not ascribe the obnoxious measures to the 
king whom they revered, or to the Constitution which they 
venerated, or to the nation which they loved, but to despotic 
ministers and corrupt majorities. They had thwarted arbi- 
trary power, whether attempted by the crown or by the legis- 
lature, and this was enough ; and when the people saw that 
the Rhode -Island commission, formed to deal with the 
destroyers of the " Gaspee," did not act, political agitation 
subsided. 

The colonists were in the habit of expressing loyalty to 
George III. in letters written in the confidence of friendship 
as well as in their state papers. The king knew this ; ^ but 
he continued to deal with what he termed "the internal 
police, the trade and the improvement of America," ^ in the 
spirit that dictated the Bute policy. He had been trained 
up in the idea that it was his duty to be every inch a king in 
his native realm, and much more over his dependencies.* 
He was the real head of the responsible government, and the 
sole dictator of its policy ; * and when measures which he so 
largely inspired were opposed by his American subjects as 
miwarranted by the Constitution, he became bitter in his 

1 Letter of Franklin to Samuel Cooper, April 27, 1769. He says: " I hope noth- 
ing . . . will diminish our loyalty to our sovereign or affection for this nation. I can 
scarcely conceive a king of better dispositions," &c. This letter, with others, waa 
intercepted, and sent to the king. — Sparks' s Franklin, vol. vii. 440. 

2 Donne's Correspondence of George III., i. p. 107. 
' Ibid., ii. p. 4. 

* Massey, History of England, ii. 178. 



296 THE EISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

feelings towards them, and was fixed in his determination bv 
any means to produce submission. He was unfortunate in 
having for his chief adviser Lord Nortli, who lacked firmness, 
and hence consented to measures from which his good sense 
often recoiled. He was more unfortunate in Lord North's 
colleagues. Lords Mansfield, Sandwich, George Germain, in 
his Attorney-General, Thurloe, and Solicitor-General, Wed- 
derburne, — violent men whose sentence was for war, or cor- 
rupt men who thought only of what was pleasant to the 
king ; and he was most unfortunate of all in reigning over a 
people a majority of whom shared fully his sentiments. 

When Lord Dartmouth took charge of the American 
department, the king sent to Lord North a sketch of such 
alterations in the administration of its affairs ^ as he thought 
essential to give efficacy to the government. The first-fruit 
of this advice was probably the Rhode-Island commission. 
The king's next measure related to the duty on tea. This 
was inoperative. The Americans would not buy teas shipped 
from England : they would not live without tea ; and hence 
illicit importations came in freely from Holland. The affairs 
of the East-India Company were in great confusion, and a 
portion of its financial troubles was alleged to be owing to 
the loss of the American trade in tea. The king now sug- 
gested a plan to relieve the corporation, and at the same 
time try the question with America. 

Lord North in the House of Commons proposed (April 27, 
1773) " to allow the company to export such portion of the 
tea then in their warehouses, to British America, as they 
should think proper, duty free." He moved two resolutions, 
providing that on all teas imported to any British Plantations 
in America after the 10th of May, 1773, " a drawback be 
allowed of all the duties of customs paid u.}X)n the importation 
of such teas," which left the company to pay the three- 
pence tax on the teas imported into America ; and the reso- 
lutions provided that this importation should be made under 

1 Donne's Correspondence of George III., i. p. 107. 



THE TEA ACT AND AMERICAN UNION. 297 

licenses from the commissioners of the Treasury.^ The meas- 
ure roused no opposition, occasioned little, if any, debate, 
and was adopted. It was carried to the House of Lords on 
the 6th of May, adopted there also, and on the 10th received 
the royal assent. The ministry thought it a wise scheme to 
take off so much duty on tea as was paid in England, as this 
would allow the company to sell tea cheaper in America than 
foreigners could supply it ; and to confine the duty here, to 
keep up the exercise of the right of taxation. " They," 
Franklin wrote, " have no idea that any people can act from 
any other principle but that of interest ; and they believe that 
three pence on a pound of tea, of which one does not perhaps 
drink ten pounds in a year, is sufficient to overcome all the 
patriotism of an American." ^ In arranging the details 
of the execution of the scheme, difficulties arose which 
required the directors to confer with the ministry. In one 
of the interviews Lord North remarked that " it was to no 
purpose making objections, for the king would have it 
so. The king meant to try the question with Amer- 
ica." ^ Thus " taxation, " Lord Chatham said, " was 
dressed in the robes of an EasWndia director." Soon 
after, the king, as an answer to late petitions from 
the colonies, reaffirmed the claim of power of the De- 
claratory Act, and said that he was determined " to resist 
with firmness every attempt to derogate from the authority 
of the supreme legislature." A semi-official announcement 
appeared in the newspapers to the effect that His Majesty had 
declared his intention of supporting the supreme authority of 
parliament to make laws binding on the colonies.* Thus the 
monarch reopened the war on a fundamental principle in the 
institutions of a free people. 

The opposition to arbitrary power was never founded so 
much on knowledge and principle, was never so firm and 

1 Parliamentary History, xvii. 841. 

2 Sparks' s Works of Franklin, viii. p. 49. 
8 Alnion's Anecdotes of Chatham, ii. 242. 
* Boston Post Boy, Nov. 5, 1773. 



298 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

systematic, as it was at the time of the passage of this Act. 
Little was said of it for several months, for little was known 
of the intentions of the company. Some of the members 
remonstrated against accepting the boon, which they re- 
garded as rather designed to establish a revenue law than 
to help them out of their difficulties.^ The directors, how- 
ever, in August obtained licenses from the Lords of the Treas- 
ury, and soon despatched ships loaded with teas to the four 
l)orts of Boston, Charleston, New York, and Philadelphia. 
It is worthy of remark that Franklin does not appear to have 
mentioned in his letters the application for licenses until 
September,^ nor Arthur Lee until October.^ 

Before these letters were written, the Tea Act had begun 
its mission. In August * the report was current in America 
that importations under it were to be carried into effect. 
The scheme was pronounced an attempt to establish the right 
of paj'liament to tax the colonies and to give the East-India 
Company the monopoly of the colonial market. As it bore 
on all the colonies, it diverted attention from the local issues, 
raised the past three years by Royal Instructions, to the orig- 
inal, general, and profound question of taxation. This had 
been argued in the court of public opinion : the verdict on it 
had been made up, and judgment had been rendered. The 

1 " The Annual Register " (vol. xvii. 47, 1774) says that several of the active mem- 
bers remonstrated that the Act was ratlier calculated for the establishment of the 
revenue law in America than as a favor to the company. 

2 Franklin, Sept. 12, 1773, wrote to Thomas Gushing: " A project is executing to 
Bend it (tea) from hence, on account of the East-India <'ompany, to be sold in Amer- 
ica, agreeable to a late Act." — Sparks's. Franklin, viii. 86. 

8 Arthur Lee, Oct. 13, 1773, wrote a letter to Samuel Adams. In a postscript he 
Ea3's: " I had forgot to mention a scheme, which is carrying into execution, of insidi- 
ously obtaining fi'om us the duty on tea." — Life of Arthur Lee, i. 236. 

4 The "New-Hampshire Gazette," Aug. 27, 1773, has an extract from a letter 
from London, dated May 26 : "I take the first opportunity of acquainting you that the 
F.ast-India Company have obtained leave, by act of parliament, to export their teas 
from England duty-free; and in a short time, perhaps a month, a cargo will be sent 
to Boston (subject to the duty pavable in America), to be sold in that place on their 
account; and they mean to keep America so well supplied that the trade to Holland 
for that article must be greatly affected." A London letter dated August 4, printed in 
a I'hiladelphia newspaper of September 29, announced that the company were 
about to send teas to several ports. 



THE TEA ACT AND AMERICAN UNION. ii99 

deterniination of the Americans not to pay a tax levied by a 
body in which they were not represented was as fixed as the 
purpose of the king to collect the duty on tea. A recent 
British writer and legislator has lately said that this deter- 
mination showed great cleverness, as the abstract proposition 
which the patriots held was undeniable, because no nation 
ought to be taxed against their own consent, and " England 
passed through many a civil war in defence of the proposi- 
tion." 1 The Americans of to-day will say that their ances- 
tors showed great intelligence in being alive to these weighty 
considerations founded on riglit and justice, when the domi- 
nant party in England was dead to them, and a heroic spirit in 
acting up to their convictions. The scheme suddenly roused 
more indignation than had been created by the Stamp Act. 
" All America was in a flame." The mighty surge of 
passion plainly meant resistance."^ 

The resistance contemplated was in general such action as 
might be necessary to thwart by lawful methods this minis- 
terial measure. The idea had been grasped in America that 
there was a Constitution which limited the power of kings, 
lords, and commons. James Otis had urged that, " if the 
reasons that could be given against an Act are such as plainly 
demonstrated that it is against natural equity, the executive 
courts would adjudge such Acts void." ^ The conviction was 
deep and general that the claim of parliament to tax was 
against natural equity and against the Constitution. But 
political science had not devised the peaceable mode of 
obtaining redress in such cases in the manner suggested by 

1 Viscount Bury, M.P , " Exodus of the Western Nations," 1865 (vol. i. 368), says: 
"The choice of a pretext (for their resistance) showed great cleverness on the part of 
the American patriots. It put them in the right. The abstract proposition for 
which tliey fought was undeniable. No nation ought to be taxed against its own 
consent. England has passed through many a year of civil war in defence of the 
proposition." 

2 The transition from apathy to agitation was sudden. A Philadelphia letter, 
dated October 25, says: "Our people are alarmed at the scheme of shipping teas. 
... I have not known so sudden and so universal an appearance of discontent." — 
Edinburgh Advertiser, Jan. 4, 1774. 

8 Otis's Rights of the Colonies, 1764. 



300 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Otis, — an idea embodied subsequently in the powers yested 
in the Supreme Court of the United States, and famihar to 
the American mind. This tribunal declares such legislation 
void. The only way then todefeat an odious scheme to collect 
an illegal tax was to follow the methods, as circumstances 
might dictate, of popular demonstration, which had long 
been customary in England, and thus render the law inap- 
plicable. 

At that time the six legislative committees chosen 
under the impulse created by arbitrary royal instructions 
had not exchanged views, much less held a conference, 
in relation to a general plan for a redress of grievances : the 
committees chosen by towns or public bodies outside of 
Massachusetts were inactive ; and hence the organization of 
the popular party was too incomplete to arrive, through this 
channel, at the concert of action which the crisis required. 
There could only have been such understanding as might 
have been reached through limited personal intercourse, pri- 
vate letters, and the expression of sentiment through the 
press, which was valuable as far as it went ; ^ and it was to 
the effect that nothing important be transacted without con- 
sulting the whole. The efficiency that could not come from 
general organization was supplied by the ripeness and fixed- 
ness of public opinion on the assumption involved in the 
claim of taxation and the Declaratory Act, and the stern 
determination of the people not to submit to it. They did 
not rise up against the paltry duty because they were poor 
and could not pay, but because they were free and would not 
submit to wrong. 

Still there was the efficiency of organic life in Massachu- 
setts, where it was needed the most, where the brunt of 
the attack happened to fall, and where failure or even falter- 
ing would have been disaster. The record of its committees 
of correspondence shows them continually at work, and that 

1 Boston Gazette, Sept. 27, 1773. '• We have now reduced American policy to a 
system." 



THE TEA AUT AND AMERICAN UNION. 301 

through them the communion of the popular party had become 
intimate. They urgently desired the patriots of the other 
colonies to adopt their plan. The Boston committee directed 
(Sept. 21, 1773) a spirited Circular, drawn up by Joseph 
Warren, to be sent out to all the towns of the province ; but 
each member was charged with the duty of sending a copy 
"to his friends in the other governments." In this they 
said that their enemies were alarmed at the union already 
established in Massachusetts, and at the prospect of the con- 
federacy into which the whole continent would soon be 
drawn for the recovery of violated rights : they urged that 
watchfulness, unity, and harmony were necessary for the 
salvation of themselves and their posterity from bondage ; 
and they concluded with the remark : " We have an 
animating confidence in the supreme Disposer of events, 
that he never will suffer a brave and virtuous people to be 
enslaved." 1 

Though the six legislative committees were inactive, yet 
the opposition to the scheme to import teas was pronounced 
more general — it could not have been more determined — 
than it was to the Stamp Act.^ The popular movement since 
that time had been more regular and progressive. There 
was now the power of an intelligent public opinion behind 
the determination to baffle the attempt to establish the tea 
duty. The manifestations in each of the four ports to which 
the teas were consigned, printed in the newspapers, consti- 
tuted strong assurances that the patriots in each felt, talked, 
and acted in a similar spirit, and that the teas would not be 
allowed to be sold, even if they were permitted to be landed. 
The decisive tone in each warrants the remark that the 
question as to which should be the first to thwart the minis- 

1 A copy of the Broadside containing this letter is in the archives of the Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society. 

2 Joseph Reed (Life, i. 52) informed Lord Dartmouth that the opposition to the 
Stamp Act was not so general. It was more regular. George Chalmers remarks in 
his letter to Lord Mansfield that, " though the opposition to the Stamp Act was out- 
rageous, it contained more bluster than spirit." — Sparks's MSS. in Harvard College 
Libraiy. 



302 THE mSE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

terial scheme depended on the port selected for the earliest 
consignment. Before this was certainly known, there were 
great popular demonstrations. 

The patriots of Philadelphia, early in October, circulated 
an " Address to the Tea Commissioners," in which it was said 
that the eyes of all were fixed on them as on men who had it 
in their power to ward off the most dangerous stroke that had 
ever been meditated against the liberties of America, and it 
appealed to them in passionate terms to decline to act. It 
pointed to the unhappy stamp-masters as examples of the 
danger of forcing " the loathsome pills of slavery down the 
throats of a free, independent, and determined people." ^ 
Soon after (October 18) a great public meeting at the State 
House resolved that the duty on tea was a tax imposed on the 
colonists without their consent, and tended to render assem- 
blies useless ; that the importation of the East-India Company 
was an attempt to enforce this tax ; and that whoever coun- 
tenanced the unloading, vending, or receiving the tea, was an 
enemy to his country. The consignees, on being requested, 
resigned their commissions. These proceedings of the 
patriots, full of spirit, dignity, and patriotism, were circu- 
lated through the colonies. 

Similar resolution was manifested in each of the four ports. 
The Boston patriots held great and exciting public meetings 
in Faneuil Hall, adopted the Philadelphia resolves, and 
requested the consignees to resign ; but met with a peremp- 
tory refusal. The New- York patriots held a meeting in City 
Hall, highly approved of the action of their brethren of 
Philadelphia and Boston " in support of the common liberties 
of America," and voted that the tea under any circumstances 
should not be landed there. The Charleston patriots, at a 
meeting in their Great Hall, received the resignation of the 

1 This was issued on a Broadside, and was copied into the newspapers of Phila- 
delphia and New York. It was signed Scevola, and had the head-line, " By uniting 
we stand, by dividing we fall." It is addressed, "To the commissioners appointed 
by the East-India Company for the sale of tea in America." It is in the " Boston 
Post Bov " and " Boston Gazette " of October 25. 



THE TEA ACT AND AMERICAN UNION. 303 

consignees with rounds of applause, and returned them 
many tlianks. The voluminous details of the proceedings in 
these commercial marts, and in other places, on this issue, 
evinced everywhere indomitable energy and resolution. They 
exhibited communities, recently hurling anathemas against 
each other, now feeling and acting alike, — one in the deter- 
mination to thwart " the new ministerial measure." 

In Boston, the course of the consignees, in refusing to 
resign, fixed all eyes upon the town. The aspect became so 
threatening that the legislative committee of correspondence 
were summoned to meet. They sent a Circular (October 21) 
to the other committees, reviewing in a calm tone, but in 
strong terms, the question between the colonies and Great 
Britain. They stated that even the least relaxation of 
American grievances had not been advised or thought of, 
and asked : "Is it not of the utmost importance that our 
vigilance should increase ; that the colonies should be united 
in their sentiments of the measures of opposition necessary 
to be taken by them ; and that in whichsoever of the colonies 
any infringements are or shall be made on the common 
rights of all, that colony should have the united efforts of all 
for its support? This, we take it, to be the true design of the 
establishment of our committees of correspondence ; " and, 
averring that they were far from desiring that the connection 
between Great Britain and America should be broken, they 
conclude by urging the necessity that each colony should 
take eifectual methods to prevent the execution of the design 
of the British ministry as to the teas.^ A few days later, the 
Connecticut committee in a Circular (Nov. 4, 1773) said that 
the design of sending teas to the several ports gave them the 
most uneasy apprehensions of the consequences, though they 
had "the utmost confidence in the firmness and virtue of the 

1 This letter contained the following postscript: "It is desired you would not 
make the contents of this letter public, as it will give our enemies opportunity to 
counteract the design of it." A portion of this letter is printed, though very incor- 
rectly in Bradford's Historj' of Massachusetts, i. 277-280. 



304 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

inhabitants of those capital towns on this occasion." I have 
not met with any replies to these circulars. The language 
of the Massachusetts letter implies that no communications 
on ihe subject had passed between the committees. 

The patriots of Boston were unwearied in their efforts to 
produce the resignation of the consignees, and in this they 
were aided by some of their political opponents. The num- 
bers who attended the great public meetings were swelled by 
men who came in from the country. The executive action, 
by the vote of a legal town meeting, was put into the hands 
of the committee of correspondence, which from time to time 
called in for consultation the committees of the neighboring 
towns, — proceeding, Hutchinson said, " like a little senate." 
They kept up a communication with the towns of the province ; 
they explained their course in letters sent to Rhode Island, 
New Hampshire, New York, and Philadelphia ; they sent 
expresses to the South to confer with the patriots there ; and 
they were inspired by the idea that " harmony and concur- 
rence in action, uniformly and firmly maintained, must 
finally conduct them to the end of their wishes, — namely, a 
full enjoyment of constitutional liberty." In a long, anxious, 
and irritating contest with the officers of the crown, the Bos- 
tonians stood forth, " like their native rocks, angular, sharp, 
and defiant." Their proceedings gave great joy to the 
patriots in the other colonies. On the reception in Philadel- 
phia of the news of the first meeting, the bells were rung, and 
the merchants greeted the resolves with hearty cheers. Still 
there were doubts expressed whether the love of money 
would not prove stronger than love of tlie cause. A Phila- 
delphia letter printed in Boston runs : " All we fear is that 
you will shrink at Boston. May God give you virtue enough 
to save the liberties of your country." 

In this way the progress of events served to fix attention 
more and more on Boston ; and its patriots could see in 
expressions from the other colonies that they were relied on 
to act with firmness and efficiency. When the struggle to 



THE TEA ACT AND AMERICAN UNION. 805 

compel tlie consignees to resign had gone on nearly a month, 
a vessel containing the tea arrived (November 28th) in the 
harbor, and in a few days two others, which the patriots di- 
rected to be moored near the first, that one guard might serve 
for all, their object being to prevent the cargoes from being 
landed. They now concentrated their efforts to have the teas 
sent back in the ships that brought them. The excitement 
increased. " The town," Governor Hutchinson wrote, " is 
as furious as it was in the time of the Stamp Act." The 
patriots apprehended that the consignees and the officers of 
the revenue might attempt to unload the ships, and that the 
naval force might be summoned to protect them ; and such 
was the spirit that prevailed that they talked of resisting by 
arms. An American matron, the wife of one President and 
the mother of another, who adorned a home in which such 
leaders as Quincy and Warren were wont to meet, now wrote : 
" The flame is kindled, and like lightning it catches from 
soul to soul. . . . Many, very many of our heroes will spend 
their lives with the speech of Cato in their mouths. . . . 
My heart beats at every whistle I hear, and I dare not express 
half my fears." ^ The public meetings became greater than 
ever. John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Joseph Warren, 
Thomas Young, and William Molineaux were the most prom- 
inent in conducting them. The selectmen of the town now 
took part in the proceedings. The ships with the tea in them 
could not pass the castle without a permit from the Governor. 
He would not grant one before they were regularly cleared 
at the custom house, and the collector declined to give a 
clearance until the vessels were discharged of articles subject 
to duty. All the efforts of the patriots in their long struggle 
had produced from the consignees only a repetition of the 

1 Letter of Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, dated Boston, Dec. 5, 1773 
(Letters, p. 9). John Andrews, Dec. 1, -ivrote: "It would puzzle any one to 
purcliasc a pair of pistols in town, as they are all bought up with a full determination 
to repel force by force." He says the arrival of the tea "had caused the most 
spirited and firm conduct to be observed that ever was known." — Mass. Hist. Sog 
Proceedings, 18G4-«5, 324. 

20 



306 THE EISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

original peremptory answer, " No resignation,'* and a refusal 
to return the teas. A vessel twenty days after her arrival in 
port was liable to seizure for the non-payment of the duties ; 
and this would be the case of the " Dartmouth " on the six- 
teenth day of December. 

It was a rainy day. No hand-bills are named as having 
been posted ; no stirring appeals to do an uncommon work 
are to be seen in the newspapers ; but the feeling was general 
that something unusual was to occur. The patriots had a 
committee charged with tlie duty of summoning people from 
the country when it should be necessary, and they probably 
had been active. A great meeting, held two days before, 
stood adjourned to this day (December 16th), which was 
Thursday. Business in town was generally suspended. The 
inhabitants in the morning flocked to " The Old South 
Meeting House," still standing. They were joined by people 
from the country for twenty miles around. The gathering 
consisted of nearly seven thousand, — "merchants, yeomen, 
gentlemen, — respectable for their rank, and venerable for 
their age and character. " The forenoon was occupied mostly 
with dealing with Francis Rotch, the owner of the " Dart- 
mouth," who was informed that he was expected to procure a 
pass from the Governor and proceed on this day with his vessel 
on his voyage for London. The meeting adjourned to three 
o'clock in the afternoon. A motion was then submitted 
whether it was the sense of the body to abide by their former 
resolutions not to suffer the tea to be landed ; and on this 
question Josiah Quincy, Jr., spoke as follows : — 

" It is not, Mr. Moderator, the spirit that vapors within 
these walls that must stand us in stead. The exertions of 
this day will call forth events which will make a very different 
spirit necessary for our salvation. Whoever supposes that 
shouts and hosannas will terminate the trials of the day 
entertains a cliildish fancy. We must be grossly ignorant of 
the importance and value of the prize for which we contend ; 
we must be equally ignorant of the power of those who have 



THE TEA ACT AND AMERICAN UNION. 307 

combined against us ; we must be blind to that malice, in- 
veteracy, and insatiable revenge, which actuate our enemies, 
public and private, abroad and in our bosom, to hope that we 
shall end this controversy without the sharpest, the sharpest 
conflicts, — to flatter ourselves that popular resolves, popular 
harang-ues, popular acclamations, and popular vapor will 
vanquish our foes. Let us consider the issue. Let us look 
to the end. Let us weigh and consider befoi*e we advance to 
those measures which must bring on the most trying and 
terrific struggle this country ever saw." ^ 

Thomas Young and Samuel Adams also spoke to this 
motion, but their words are lost. It was said, " Now that 
the hand is at the plough, there must be no looking back." 
At half-past four the motion passed that the tea should not 
be landed. The meeting was patient, orderly, and surprised 
strangers who viewed the scene. It refused to dissolve on 
the earnest request of many who desired that it should be 
continued until six o'clock. 

Meantime a band of forty or fifty met in a room in the 
rear of the printing-office of the " Boston Gazette," at the cor- 
ner of what are now Court and Brattle Streets. No authen- 
tic list of their names has appeared. Nothing is known of 
their organization. They were said that evening to have 
been Indians from Narragansett. " Whether," an observer 
wrote, "they were or not, they appeared as such, being 
clothed with blankets, with the heads muffled, and with 
copper -colored countenances, being each armed with a 
hatchet or axe, and a pair of pistols ; nor was their dialect 
different from what 1 conceive those geniuses to speak, as 
their jargon was unintelligible to all but themselves." ^ Tliis 
indicates the nature of their preparation. Undoubtedly they 
acted with the knowledge of the committee of correspond- 
ence, and were awaiting the result of the meeting. The 

1 Tliese remarks axe copied from Gordon, i. 340, printed in London, 1788. 

2 John Andrews's letter, Dec. 19, 1773, in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, 1864-65, 
p. 26. 



308 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

preparation was sufficient to secure prompt and thorough 
work. 

In the afternoon Rotch was at Milton, the country seat of 
Governor Hutchinson. He went there to ask once more 
for a pass to enable his ship with the tea in her to get by the 
castle. The Governor inquired as to the intention of the 
people respecting the teas, and was informed that they meant 
to force them back to England. After a little time Hutchin- 
son sternly repeated his refusal to grant the pass, saying that 
he could not do it consistently with the rules of government 
and his duty to the king, unless the vessel was properly 
cleared. This answer closed the last opportunity for con- 
cession, which he unwisely declined. 

About six o'clock Rotch returned to the Old South, which 
was dimly lighted with candles and filled with people, many 
also standing in the streets. He stated the result of his 
application to the Governor for a pass. On slight manifes- 
tations of disorder, Thomas Young rose and said that Rotch 
was a good man who had done all that was in his power to 
gratify the people ; and they were enjoined to do no harm to 
his person or his property. He was then asked " whether 
he would send his vessel back with the tea in her, under the 
circumstances." He replied, " he could not possibly com- 
ply, as he apprehended compliance would prove his ruin ; " 
and confessed that, " if called upon by the proper officers, he 
should attempt, for his own security, to land the tea." 
Samuel Adams then said : " This meeting can do nothing 
more to save the country." A war-whoop was now sounded 
at the door, which was answered from the galleries. The 
shouting became tremendous. Silence was enjoined. The 
meeting was declared by the moderator dissolved, wlien there 
was another general shout out of doors and in, and three clieers. 
A citizen, who on endeavoring to enter could get no further 
than the porch, says: "What with that, and the subsequent 
noise of breaking up the meeting, you would have thought that 



THE TEA ACT AND AMERICAN UNION. 309 

the inhabitants of the infernal regions had broke loose." ^ As 
the party from whom rose the war-whoop passed the church, 
numbers naturally followed on ; and the throng went directly 
to Griffin's Wharf, now Liverpool, at the foot of Purchase 
Street, off which were moored the three vessels which con- 
tained the tea. A resolute band had guarded them day and 
night. John Hancock was one of the guard this evening. 
The party in disguise, — probably his friend Joseph Warren 
was among them, — whooping like Indians, went on board the 
vessels, and, warning their officers and those of the custom- 
house to keep out of the way, unlaid the hatches, hoisted the 
chests of tea on deck, cut them open, and hove the tea over- 
board. They proved quiet and systematic workers. No 
one interfered with them. No other property was injured ; 
no person was harmed ; no tea was allowed to be carried 
away ; and the silence of the crowd on shore was such that 
the noise of breaking the chests was distinctly heard by them. 
"The whole," Hutchinson wrote, "was done with very little 
tumult." The town was never more still of a Saturday night 
than it was at ten o'clock that evening. The men from the 
country carried great news to their villages.^ 

Joy, as for deliverance from calamity, now burst in full 
cliorus from the American heart. 

The local exultation was extreme. " You cannot imag- 
ine," Samuel Adams wrote, "the height of joy that sparkles 
in the eyes and animates the countenances as well as the 
hearts of all we meet on this occasion." ^ " This," John 
Adams said, " is the most magnificent movement of all. 



1 John Andrews. Dec. 19, 1773. He was summoned, by "prodigious" shouting, 
trom his tea-table ; could get no further than the porch ; heard the moderator declare 
the meeting dissolved, and then returned home and finished his supper. On being 
informed of what was going on, he went again. He saw the disguise of the party, 
and was told they numbered two himdred, — a larger number than any other 
authority gives. The usual statement is forty or fifty. 

2 Joseph Warren bore a part in the series of mei^tings, public and private, held in 
Boston in relation to the importation of the tea; and the narrative of their events in 
the "Life and Times of AVarren" occupies fifty pages. 

8 Letter, Dec. 31. 



310 THE EISE OP THE EEPUBLIC. 

There is a dignity, a majesty, a sublimity, in this last effort 
of the patriots, that I greatly admire." ^ " We," John Scol- 
lay, one of the selectmen and an actor, wrote, " do console 
ourselves that we have acted constitutionally," ^ — namely, 
did no more than was necessary, under the circumstances, to 
defeat the design of landing the teas. 

The exultation was scarcely less outside of Massachusetts. 
In New York " vast numbers of the people collected, and 
highly extolled the Bostonians." ° In Philadelphia the bells 
were rung, a large public meeting voted " the most perfect 
approbation, with universal huzzas ; " and subsequently, when 
five thousand people met, they " returned their hearty thanks 
to the people of Boston for their resolution in destroying the 
tea, rather than suffering it to be landed." * A letter from 
North Carolina contained the assurance " that the deed was 
the only remedy left to save the colonies from destined 
slavery, and that the actors, beside the satisfaction arising 
from a conscientious discharge of duty due to posterity, had 
the approbation of the whole continent." ^ It was the boldest 
stroke that had been struck in the controversy between the 
colonies and the mother-country ; and bold measures in the 
right direction are sure to be popular. As events developed, 
some of the Whigs hesitated to approve this deed, and some 
counselled the payment of the value of the property de- 
stroyed ; while the Tories condemned it in unmeasured 
terms. In a deliberate review of the train of events leading 
to it, Gordon says that the deed was necessary to save 

1 Diary, Dec. 17, 1773. Works, ii. 323. 

2 John Scolla^- to Arthur Lee, Dec. 23, 1773. 

8 " Boston Gazette," Jan. 3, 1774, which says the bells of the town were rung 
on receiving the intelligence from New York. 

* "Boston Gazette," Jan. 10, 1774, after William Palfrey had returned. 

5 The "Boston Gazette," of March 28, 1774, lias an extract from a letter of a 
gentleman of distinction in Norlli Carolina, dated Pitt, Feb. 18, 1774: "I read with 
much satisfaction the account of the destruction of the tea, as it was, I think, the 
only remedy left to rescue the colonies from their destined slaverj'. You labor under 
some dilUcultics more than your neighbors; but the satisfaction of a conscientious 
discharge of the duty you owe to posterit}', together with the approbation of the 
whole continent of your conduct, is a suflicicnt reward." 



THE TEA ACT AND AMERICAN UNION. 311 

the union ; and Dr. Ramsay, going deeper, gives the judg- 
ment that, if the American position was riglit in relation to 
taxation, the destruction of the tea was warranted by the 
great law of self-preservation : " for it was not possible for 
them by any other means, within the compass of probability, 
to discharge the duty they owed to their country." ^ The 
important " if" of Ramsay is disposed of by the judgment 
of the liberal world. Even British writers concede that the 
claim of Americans was right beyond question. 

The Tea Act had the effect to make this question of taxa- 
tion a living issue. The opposition to the British assumption 
in relation to it, as before remarked, was spontaneous, gen- 
eral, irresistible. " Popular movements have commonly been 
ascribed to the principal actors in them as to their authors ; 
but the utmost that can be accomplished by individuals, in 
such cases, is merely to avail themselves of a happy predis- 
position in the public mind, to give form and consistency to 
loose opinions, and to bring to the aid of an infant sect or 
})arty the weight of talent, learning, and character, or station. 
They may thus strengthen and direct the current." ^ The 
popular leaders now sought to give direction to a great 
movement ; or to take advantage of a happy disposition in 
the public mind and extend the organization of committees 
of correspondence. 

The assemblies in doing this acted on the original invita- 
tion of the House of Burgesses, and generally used the words 
of their resolves in specifying the object sought. The 
Georgia assembly chose in September, when the people were 
engaged in carrying on a war against the savages; the 

1 " Had the tea been landed, the union of the colonies in opposing the ministerial 
schemes would have been dissolved; and it would have been extremely difficult ever 
after to have restored it." — Gordon, i. 342. 

"Admitting the rectitude of the American claims of exemption from parliamentary 
taxation, the destruction of the tea by Bostonians was waiTanted by the great law 
of self-preservation; for it was not possible for them by any other means, within the 
compass of probability, to discharge the duty they owed to their country." — Ramsay's 
History of American Revolution, i. 121. 

2 Brodie's History of the British Empire, i. 48. 



312 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

Maryland assembly chose in October, when the internal 
dissension occasioned by the Proclamation controversy had 
hardly subsided, saying in their Circular that they were 
sensible of the great utility of a union of the colonies ; 
the Delaware assembly also chose this month ; the North- 
Carolina assembly chose in December ; and the New-York 
and New-Jersey assemblies chose in February. The assem- 
blies returned warm thanks to the House of Burgesses " for 
their early attention to the liberties of America." Their 
committees did not hold a conference during the winter of 
1773-74, or mature a plan for joint action, or do more than 
exchange a few letters ; and the only references I have 
met, in this limited correspondence, to the issue raised by 
the Tea Act, are those contained in the letters of the com- 
mittees of Massachusetts and Connecticut, already cited 
m the narrative.^ 

1 The dates of the choice of committees of correspondence by six assemblies have 
been given. See note, p. 28-1. 

The Georgia " commons " chose Sept. 10, 1773, and were " the speaker and anj- 
five of the committee of correspondence." The letter to the House of Burgesses, 
dated Nov. 20, was signed by William Young, Noble Wimberly Jones, Joseph Clay, 
D. Zubley, Jr., William Coutts. A public meetmg, July 27, 1774, chose a commit- 
tee which McCall (History of Georgia, 2) terms the formation of the Republican party. 
This meeting was denounced by a Proclamation of Governor Wright. 

The Maryland assembly chose a committee October 15, 1773 ; viz., Matthew 
Tilghman, John Hall, Thomas Johnson, W'illiam Paca, Samuel Chase, Edward 
Lloyd, Matthias Hammond, Josiah Beale, James Lloyd Chamberlaine, Brice Thomas, 
Beale Worthington, Joseph Sim, or any six. The letter to the Burgesses communi- 
cating the choice is dated Dec. 6, 1773. It is stated in the " Essex Gazette " of Feb. 
11, 1774, that this assembly had come into resolves simihir to those of the other 
colonies. 

The Delaware assembly chose a committee Oct. 23, 1773. The members who 
signed the reply to the Burgesses were the spe dvcr, Ctesar Rodney, George Read, 
Thomas McKean, John McKinley, and Thomas Robeson. The announcement of 
the choice of a committee is in the "Massachusetts Gazette" of Nov. 8. 

North-Carolina assembly chose Dec. 8, 1773. The committee were "John 
Harvey, Mr. Howe, Mr. Harnett, Mr. Hooper, Mr. Caswell, Mr. Vail, Mr Ash, Mr. 
1 levves, and Samuel Johnston. The answer to the Burgesses is dated Dec. 26, and is 
sijjiied by John Harvey. The fact of the choice of the committee is stated in the 
■'.Massachusetts Gazette," Feb. 21, 1774. 

The New- York assembly chose a committee Jan. 20, 1774. It is stated in the 
" Kssex Gazette," Feb. 17, that this committee consisted of the speaker and twelve 
other members. The reply to the Burgesses is dated March 1. The names given 
are John Cruger, James De Lancy, James Janucy, Jacob Walton, Benjamin Sea 



THE TEA ACT AND AMEEICAN UNION. 313 

The popular party, in their several municipalities, pro- 
ceeded independently in forming committees. The earliest 
towns named in the newspapers as choosing were Dover, 
Exeter, and Newcastle, in New Hampshire. They reiterated 
in spirited resolves the sentiment that taxation without 
representation was slavery, and approved of " the noble 
struggles of the opulent colonies " to avert so great " a 
catastrophe." So general was this movement that it was 
said in the press that the manly and patriotic proceedings 
of the people of the province would convince all that " they 
were American freemen, and were fired with the glorious 
spirit of freedom which lightens this Western World." ^ 
Several towns in Rhode Island, among which were Provi- 
dence and Newport, chose committees, as did also a meeting 
in New York, at which John Lamb presided. These com- 
mittees and others entered into correspondence relative to 
the tea importation. 

The resistance to the ministerial scheme in this way was 
general, systematic, and thorough. The newspapers contain 
much matter relative to the reception of the cargoes at the 
ports to which the tea was consigned. In Philadelphia, at 
an hour's notice, five thousand met, and resolved that a 
cargo should not be landed, but should go back in the same 
bottom. The captain and the consignees bowed to the pop- 
ular will, and a vast concourse escorted them to the tea ship 
and saw her sail. In New York it was announced in the 
Tory organ that arrangements were made to have the tea 
sent liack in the same ship, and thus New York be secured 
" a succession of that blessed tranquillity which they enjoyed 
under the present wise and serene administration." ^ In 

man, Isaac Wilkins, Frederick Phillips, Daniel Kissam, Zebulon Seaman, John 
Rapalse, Simon Boeriim, John De Noyelles, and George Clinton, or any seven. 

The New-Jersey assembly chose a committee Feb. 8, 1774; namely, James Kinsey, 
Stephen Crane, Hendrick Fisher, Samuel Tucker, John Wetherell, Robert Friend 
Price, John Uinchman, John Mehelm, and Edward Taylor. — Gordon's New Jersey, 
154. 

Tiie Pennsylvania assembly did not choose a committee. 

^ Essex Gazette, Jan. 18, 1774. 

2 Rivhigston Gazette, copied into "Massachusetts Gazette," Jan. 3, 1772. 



314 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Charleston a great meeting on the arrival of the cargo ap- 
pointed a committee, — on which were Christopher Gadsden, 
Charles Pinckncy, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, — to 
inform the captain that tlie teas must go back ; but the ship 
was delayed beyond the twenty days, when the collector 
seized the vessel and stored the tea in a damp cellar, where 
it was destroyed. There were similar dealings with the 
teas in other places. The scheme was thoroughly defeated. 
The unity of spirit and harmony of action of the popular 
party once more excited the liveliest hopes. Samuel Adams, 
reflecting on the increasing intercourse between the colonies, 
remarked that old jealousies had been removed, and harmony 
subsisted between them, and said that the institution of 
committees of correspondence would be attended with great 
and good consequences. ^ The friend always by his side, 
Joseph Warren, enthusiastic over the prospect of union, 
wrote : " We can never enough adore that Almighty Disposer 
who has, as it were, by general inspiration awakened a whole 
continent to a sense of their danger." ^ The ardent hoped to 
see a congress grow out of the movement. This measure was 
earnestly advocated in the press. " It is now time," a writer 
says, " for the colonies to have a grand congress to complete 
the system for the American independent commonwealth, as 
it is so evident that no other plan will secure the rights of 
this people ; for this would unite all Americans by an indis- 
soluble bond of union, and thereby make them formidable 
and superior to any kingdom upon earth." ^ 

1 Letter to James WariMi, Dec 28, 1773. The "Boston Gazette" of Jan. 10, 
1774, saj's: "The united spirit of the people of South Carolina, Philadelphia, New 
York, this Province, &c., in opposing the subtle design of the British administration, 
to make the East-India Company the instruments in establishing the revenue and 
thus enslaving the continent, forebodes a happy union of counsels among tlie several 
colonies by means of their committees of correspondence." 

2 Letter, Jan. 24, 1774, in "Life and Times of Warren," 290. 

* This citation is from a piece in the "Boston Evening Post" of March 14, 1774. 
It rt>:ommcnds that in future the colonies should " profl'er petitions to none but the 
King of Heaven." It concludes as follows: — 

*' It is now time for the colonies to have a Grand Congress to complete the system for 
the American Independent Commonwealth, as it is so evident that no other plan will 



THE TEA ACT AND AMERICAN UNION. 315 

Tliis line of remark suggesting an American common- 
wealth, indulged in by a few, constituted the material used 
by the enemies of the American cause to prove that the 
popular leaders really aimed at independence and were 
hypocrites in denying it. They, however, in defeating the 
execution of the Tea Act had accomplished their object. If 
the protestations of the most prominent among them, includ- 
ing Samuel Adams and Washington, — if the resolves of 
public meetings and of general assemblies , — be accepted as 
authentic revelations of what may be properly termed public 
opinion, then it may be inferred that the great body of the 
people would have welcomed the repeal of the duty on tea 
and the Declaratory Act with bursts of joy like those which 
greeted the repeal of the Stamp Act. Indeed the hope was 
general that the desire of the two countries to keep together, 
the inherent justice of the claim of the Americans to equal 
rights, their triumphant reasoning in behalf of their cause, 
and more than all their union, resolution, and increasing 
power, would affect public opinion in England to such a 
degree as to bring about a cliange of administration and a 
reversal of the Bute policy, and thus restore harmony.^ 

The expression in favor of a congress produced no regular 
call for the election of delegates during the spring of 1774. 
The journals for months after the complete defeat of the 
execution of the Tea Act show little political agitation out- 
side of Massachusetts. Here the issue respecting the 



secure the rights of this people from rapacious and plotting tyrants. I have been 
assured, from good authority, that many patriots, for several years past, have turned 
their attention to this grand allair of an American commonwealth, anil that a system 
is nearly complete, which will unite all Americans by an indissoluble bond of union, 
and thereby make them formidable and superior to any kingdom upon earth. Let the 
Americans feel their importance, act like freemen, trust in Heaven, and fear none of 
the sons of Adam." 

^ John Scollay, one of the Boston selectmen, May 31, 1774, wrote to Arthur Lee: 
" We liave too great a regard for our parent state (although cruelly treated by some 
of her illegitimate sons) to withdraw our connection. Of her we have no idea of an 
independency." . . . And he hoped the wisdom of both countries wuld "fix on 
some principles for each part}' to resort to as the great charter of agreement between 
the king and his colonies." 



316 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

salaries of local officers occasioned a sharp struggle, and an 
impeachment of the chief justice because he accepted his 
salary from the crown. Whatever local importance however 
this question assumed, it did not move the people of the 
other colonies. Even here the agitation was limited. " I 
am of the same opinion," John Adams wrote, " that I have 
been for years, that there is not spirit enough on either side 
to bring the question to a complete decision. . . . Our chil- 
dren may see revolutions, and be concerned and active in 
effecting them, of which we can form no conception."^ 
Jefferson says that the Virginians relapsed into lethargy .^ 
Joseph Reed in Philadelphia reviewed elaborately the whole 
field in remarkable letters addressed to Lord Dartmouth, 
and he now wrote : " I know of no cloud arising in our 
political hemisphere unless our conduct respecting the tea 
should produce one." ^ 

Samuel Adams apprehended the situation. His utterances 
show that he hoped rather than expected that the ministers 
w^ould alter their policy ; and in the case of their persistence 
in it, he saw as a consequence no other result than separation 
and independence. Still his record as clearly shows that, 
so far from welcoming the bloody work of revolution, he 
involuntarily shrunk from it. He continued for a year to 
express warm affection for the mother-country. He stood, 
however, firm in his conviction of what public duty demanded. 
It was in vain to expect that the people would be contented 
with partial or temporary relief, or be amused with court 
promises. Their opposition to unconstitutional measures 
had grown into system ; colony communed freely with col- 
ony ; there was among the colonies a common affection, — 
the communis sensus ; the whole continent had become 
united in sentiment and in opposition to tyranny. However, 
the old good- will and affection for the parent country was 

1 Letter, April 9, 177e, in Works, ii. 337. 

2 Memoirs of Jefferson, i. 5. Ed. 1830. 

8 Letter, April 4, 177-1. Keed's Reed, i. 58. 



THE TEA ACT AND AMERICAN UNION. 317 

not lost: if she returned to her former moderation, the 
former love would return ; for the people wanted nothing 
more than permanent union with her on the condition of 
equal liberty. This is all they had for ten years been con- 
tending for, and nothing short of this would or ought to 
satisfy them.^ This was his position stated in liis own 
words. It was a defensive one. He had faith in the repub- 
lican idea ; appreciated the value of its embodiment in 
American institutions ; sought their preservation ; and for 
their protection would have been satisfied with the national 
power which grandly met the natural sentiment of country. 
As the reports came that the government was maturing severe 
penal measures, and that fleets and armies were to be sent 
over to enforce them, his faith in God and his countrymen 
rose. " It is our duty," he wrote, " at all hazards to pre- 
serve the public liberty. Righteous Heaven will graciously 
smile on every manly and rational attempt to secure that 
best of all gifts to man from the ravishing hand of lawless 
and brutal power." ^ This was not a type of the sentimen- 
talism which has its origin in dreams, and naturally lands in 
Utopia, but was a type of the integrity of character and pur- 
pose, which were the springs of the wise counsels and the 
great action that led to the formation of the republic. 

The period of suspense terminated during the first week in 
May, when the newspapers became burdened with details 
shewing the feeling roused in England by the destruction of 
the tea. It was pronounced by the king a subversion of the 
Constitution ; by Lord North, the culmination of years of riot 
and confusion ; by parliament, actual rebellion flowing from 

1 Letter, March 31, 1774, drawn up by Samuel Adams for the lecjislative commit- 
tee of correspondence, and signed by himself, John Hancock, William Phillips, and 
William Heath, and addressed to Franklin. S. A. Wells's MS. Life of Adams, ii. 
485, has this letter. It is, -with a few sentences wanting, in the Massachusetts papers 
of the Scventj'-Six Society. 

2 Samuel Adams to James Warren, March 31, 1774, MSS. The "Massachu- 
setts Gazette," April 25, 1774, has the following letter from Loudon, dated Feb. 15: 
" Six ships of war and seven regiments are ordered to America with all expedition; 
for what purpose time must discover." 



818 THE RISE OF THE EEPUBLIC. 

ideas of independence. The opposition bowed to the storm. 
Lord Chatham uttered rebuke, and Colonel Barr^ conceded 
the necessity of punishment. Lord Dartmouth was the 
most moderate in his speech, terming the proceeding a 
commotion, but was anxious that the offenders should be 
punished. The bold stroke of the Boston patriots stirred 
an intense nationality into an energy, that, like a hurricane, 
swept before it men and parties. The words, often cited, of 
the arrogant, insolent, and galling Yenn, were then uttered 
and circulated through the colonies : " The offence of the 
Americans is flagitious : the town of Boston ought to be 
knocked about their ears and destroyed. Delenda est 
Carthago. You will never meet with proper obedience to 
the laws of this country until you have destroyed that nest 
of locusts." These words embodied the feeling of England 
in an hour of her insolence.^ 

The ministers blundered, as usual, in meeting this issue. 
They proceeded as though they had to deal only with 
Boston and Massachusetts. It had long been a theory that 
the law of diversity was so deeply rooted and so paramount 
in its influence, that any thing like real political unity among 
the colonies would be impossible. Hutchinson accepted 
this theory. General Gage, the commander of the British 
army in America, having his eye over the whole field, 
judged that the chance was small of the Bostonians getting 
more than fair words from the other colonies ; and, fresh 
from America, assured the king, in a personal interview, that 
four regiments stationed in Boston would prevent any dis- 
turbance. The king reports him even as saying, " They 
will be lions while we are lambs ; but if we take the resolute 
part, they will prove very meek," — a saying which the king 
thought worth sending to Lord North .^ It was reasoned: 

1 Venn's words are in the "Massachusetts Gazette" of ISIay 19, 1774. Governor 
Johnstone, one of tlie Peace Commission of 1778, in a private letter dated June 10, 
to Henry I.aurens, the President of Congress, said: "If you should follow the ex- 
ample of England in the hour of her insolence," &c — Annual Register, xxi. 338. 

2 Donne's Correspondence of George III., i. 164. 



THE TEA ACT AND AMEEICAN UNION. 319 

The other colonies will not take fire at the proper punish- 
ment of those who have disobeyed the laws. They will 
leave them to suifer for their own offences ; ^ the shutting 
up of the port will be naturally a gratification to the neigh- 
boring towns ; the other colonies will accept with pleasure 
any benefits they can derive from the misfortunes of Massa- 
chusetts ; the policy of singling out this colony will event- 
ually prove a means of dissolving the bond of union.^ 

The king on the 7th of March, 1774, in messages to both 
Houses, recommended to their serious consideration the 
proceedings in America elicited by tlie Tea Act, and partic- 
ularly the destruction of the tea in Boston. The messages 
were accompanied with a mass of papers relating to this 
matter.^ It was left to parliament to say what measures 
were necessary to secure the execution of the laws and 
the just dependence of the colonies ; but Lord North sub- 
mitted no plan. Lord Thurloe, impatient for coercion, 
said loud enough to reach the ears of the minister, " I 
never heard any thing so impudent: he has no plan yet 
ready." An address to the king, however, was promptly 
agreed upon, expressing thanks for the gracious commu- 
nication that day made to parliament ; and in the evening 
the king wrote to Lord North : " It is carrying a very 
material point, — the ordering an address without a divis- 
ion, — and gives a degree of weight to the subsequent steps 
that will be taken on this business in the House of Com- 
mons."* The steps alluded to were the famous series of 
penal measures. 

The first of this series, the Boston Port Bill, was moved 
by Lord North on the 14th of March. It passed in about 

1 Annual Register, vol. xvii. 64. 

2 Ibid., vol. xviii. 2. 

8 Tlic particulars of the destruction of the tea Tvere received in London by the 
New-York mail on Wednesday, Jan. 19, 1774, and were printed in the London 
papers of Jan. 21, and in the "Edinburgh Advertiser" of Jan. 25. There were no 
comments. The ministers waited for the arrival of official despatches. 

* Donne's Letters of George III., i. 173. 



320 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

two weeks through the various stages, with very little 
debate. On its second reading without division, the king 
wrote that the fact " was so favorable to the measure that 
he could not refrain from expressing the pleasure it gave 
him ; " and thought that " the feebleness and fatuity of the 
opposition shewed the rectitude of the measure." ^ Words of 
soberness and truth, even of prophecy, were spoken in the 
debate against the bill, in both Houses, but there were no 
divisions. The anxious eyes of a patriot and a great 
statesman followed the "mad and cruel measure." "Eep- 
aration," Lord Chatham wrote, " ought first to be demanded 
in a solemn manner, and refused by the town and magistracy 
of Boston, before such a bill of pains and penalties can be 
called just ; " but, he remarked, perhaps a fatal desire had 
taken possession of the heart of the government to take 
advantage of a tumult in order to crush the spirit of liberty 
among the Americans.^ It is recorded on the journals of 
both Houses that the bill passed unanimously. It received 
the royal assent on the 31st of March, and then became a 
law. It provided for a discontinuance of the landing of all 
merchandise whatever in, or the shipping from the town or 
harbor of Boston on and after the first day of June ; consti- 
tuted Marblehead a port of entry, and Salem the seat of 
government. This state of things was to continue until 
certain conditions should be complied with, — one being 
that the owners of the property that was destroyed should 
be indemnified. It was officially announced that an army 
and a fleet would be employed to enforce the Act. 

This Act was received by separate arrivals at New York 
and Boston,^ and was circulated with wonderful rapidity 

1 Donne's Letters of George III., i. 176. 

2 Correspondence of the Earl of Chatham, iv. 336. 

8 The IJoston Port Act was received here on the lOth of May, and the "Massa- 
chusetts Gazette" of May 12 has it in full, with the following headmg: "Tuesday 
arrived here Captain Shayler, in a brig from London, who brought the most iuterest- 
ing and important advices that ever was received at Uie port of Boston." The Act 
was received in New York, Maj' 12, by Captain Couper, twenty- seven days from 
London. "We want language to express our abhorrence," a New-York letter of 
the 14th says, printed in the "Boston Gazette." 



THE TEA ACT AND AMERICAN UNION. 321 

from these centres through the colonies. It spoke for itself. 
It doomed a town to suffer for a deed which had been wel- 
comed in every quarter with manifestations of joy. Pathetic 
appeal, or party manipulation, or personal influence, was not 
required to rouse a general indignation. This welled up 
instinctively from the American heart, and was expressed 
in every form. The Act was printed on paper with mourn- 
ing lines; it was cried through the streets as barbarous 
murder ; it was burnt by the common hangman on scaffolds 
forty-five feet high. The feeling that it was unjust and in- 
human was expressed in passionate words. " Join or die," 
a terse Rhode-Island utterance reads: " the insult to our vir- 
tuous brethren ouglit to be viewed in the same odious light as 
a direct hostile invasion of every province on the continent." 
Thus the patriots gave themselves up to impulses that honor 
human nature. The Act was a failure from the moment of 
its promulgation. 

The Boston committee of correspondence invited the 
committees of eight neighboring towns to meet for deliber- 
ation in Faneuil Hall. Men in that conference (May 12) 
took part in the counsels or the battles of the whole 
subsequent struggle. Samuel Adams presided, and Joseph 
Warren drew up its papers. The conference addressed a 
circular to the committees in all the colonies, recommending 
a suspension of trade with Great Britain, suggesting that the 
single question was whether the other colonies would con- 
sider Boston as suffering for the common cause, and resent 
the injury inflicted on her, and promising fidelity to the 
rights of America. On the next day a town meeting was 
held in Faneuil Hall, with Samuel Adams for the moderator. 
The inhabitants addressed (May 13) a circular " to all the 
sister colonies, promising to suffer for America with fortitude, 
but confessing that singly they must find their trial too 
severe : " they entreated not to be left alone when the being of 
every colony as a free people depended on the event ; and they 
also proposed, as the means to obtain redress, commercial 

21 



322 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

non-intercourso. The hall could not contain the numbers 
who attended, and many stood outside until its close. Ex- 
presses were sent to Salem and Marblehead, to New York 
and to Philadelphia, with letters to the patriots. The 
legislative committee were directed by the House to send 
the Port Act to the other colonies, and to call immediate 
attention to it as " an act designed to suppress the spirit of 
liberty in America." The committee in performing this 
duty (May 28) said : " We think the archives of Constanti- 
nople might be in vain searched for a parallel. To reason 
upon such an act would be idleness. You will doubtless 
judge every British American colony deeply concerned in it, 
and contemplate and determine upon it accordingly." Thus 
the patriots acted through their varied organizations in a 
spirit of order, and with promptness, dignity, and efficiency. 
The reception of these circulars was the occasion for 
memorable proceedings, which have often been related, but 
which ought not to be omitted in any narrative of these 
times. The inhabitants of Marblehead tendered the use of 
their wharves to the Bostonians, one of their number, 
Elbridge Gerry, the future Vice-President, saying that the 
resentment of an arbitrary ministry would prove a diadem of 
honor to the oppressed town. The merchants of Newbury- 
port voted to break off trade with Great Britain, and lay up 
their ships until the port should be opened. Salem, in an 
address to Governor Gage, drawn up by Timothy Pickering, 
the future Secretary of State, averred that they must be lost 
to all feelings of humanity to raise their fortunes on the 
ruins of their neighbor. The same spirit was manifested in 
the other New-England colonics. The Connecticut assem- 
bly appointed a day for humiliation and prayer, and ordered 
an inventory to be taken of cannon and military stores. 
Prox-idence, in Rhode Island, resolved that all the colonies 
were concerned in the Port Act, and recommended a con- 
gress. Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, declared that the 
administration were taking every method to disunite the col 



THE TEA ACT AND AMERICAN UNION. 323 

onies, hut hoped their firm union would continue. The 
sentiment and determination of the patriots south of New 
England were represented in the proceedings of the Virginia 
House of Burgesses. On the reception of the news of the 
Port Act, all business gave way to the generous purpose to 
stand by Massachusetts. In resolves penned by Jefferson, 
they set apart the first day of June as a day of fasting and 
prayer, to invoke the divine interposition to give to the 
American people one heart and one mind to oppose by all 
just means every injury to American rights, and to inspire 
the minds of His Majesty and his parliament with wisdom, 
moderation, and justice. These resolves brought down a 
dissolution ; and before others, proposing a congress, could be 
passed.^ The members then repaired to the Raleigh Tavern, 
where they declared that an attack made on one of the sister 
colonies was an attack on all British America, and threat- 
ened ruin to the rights of all, unless the united wisdom of 
the whole were applied ; and they recommended the com- 
mittee of correspondence to communicate with the other 
committees on the expediency of holding an annual congress. 
Two days later the circulars from the north were received, 
when the Burgesses who remained in Williamsburg — 
Washington was one — appointed a convention, consisting 
of representatives of all the counties, to meet on the first 
day of August.^ 

1 The House of Burgesses had before them on the 24th of May a resolve provid- 
ing for the call of a congress, and were dissolved the next momuig. The resolve is 
in the " Boston Gazette " of June 20. The Massachusetts assembly convened on 
the 25th of May. Samuel Adams was about to introduce resolves for a congress 
when the assembly (26tli) was adjourned by the Governor to meet in Salem on the 
7th of June. 

2 The "Essex Gazette " of June 28 has the following, showing the feeling south of 
Virginia: " Charleston, South Carolma, June 6. Last Tuesday morning a packet was 
received here from a very respectable committee at Philadelphia, enclosing letters from 
other committees, and contained the first intelligence of the passing of an act of par- 
liament for blocking up the harbor of Boston, which, if we may judge from the indig- 
nation with which it is everywhere received, will prove the cruellest policy that ever 
disgraced the British senate, and be the very means to perfect that union in America 
which it was intended to destroy." 



324 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

This noble action, embodying the passion and humanity of 
a rich historic liour, was a fitting prelude to the spectacle 
which the colonies presented on the day (June 1) the Port 
Act went into effect. A cordon of British men-of-war was 
moored around the town of Boston. Not a keel nor a raft 
was permitted to approach the wharves. The wheels of 
commerce were stopped. The poor were deprived of employ- 
ment. The rich were cut off from their usual resources. 
Tlie town entered upon its period of suffering. The day was 
widely observed as a day of fasting and prayer. The mani- 
festations of sympathy were general. Business was sus- 
pended. Bells were muffled, and tolled from morning till 
night ; flags were kept at half-mast ; streets were dressed in 
mourning ; public buildings and shops were draped in black ; 
large congregations filled the churches. In Virginia the 
members of the House of Burgesses assembled at their place 
of meeting ; went in procession, with the Speaker at their 
head, to the church and listened to a discourse. " Never," 
a lady wrote, " since my residence in Virginia have I seen 
so large a congregation as was this day assembled to hear 
divine service." ^ The preacher selected for his text the 
words : " Be strong and of good courage, fear not, nor be 
afraid of them ; for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go 
with thee. He will not fail thee nor forsake thee." " The 
people," Jefferson says, " met generally, with anxiety and 
alarm in their countenances ; and the effect of the day, through 
the whole colony, was like a shock of electricity, arousing 
every man and placing him erect and solidly on his centre." ^ 
These words describe the effect of the Port Act throughout 
the thirteen colonies. 

This train of events served to fix again all eyes on Boston. 
It was now required to be patient under suffering, to show 

1 Letters dated Williamsburg, June 1, 1774, in "Edinburgh Advertiser," July 
26. An excellent letter from one of the Burgesses, dated June 4, is printed in this 
paper of Aug. 2, and the whole proceedings in the issue of Aug. 5. 

2 Jefferson Memoir, p. 6. 



THE TEA ACT AND AMERICAN UNION. 320 

forbearance under insult, and to be faithful to the cause in 
the face of danger. The feeling among its citizens was 
bitter, intense, and up to the verge of civil war. The Tories 
taunted the Whigs with following a set of reckless dema- 
gogues, who professed loyalty, but aimed at independence. 
They had brought down upon the town its calamity, and 
would be sent to England and expiate their crimes at Tyburn. 
The Whigs, as they directed public odium in every way on 
the Tories, averred that nothing was further from their 
hearts than a spirit of rebellion, and continued their confi- 
dence in a noble band of leaders. They were guiding a 
great movement with uncommon wisdom. The militia were 
not called out to resist the landing of the troops daily ex- 
pected ; the British fleet were not cannonaded from guns 
planted on the surrounding hills ; the idea was not acted on, 
if it was suggested by the rash, of declaring independence, 
unfurling the Pine Tree flag, and entering upon a Quixotic 
crusade against England. The town bore its burden with 
dignity, and based its hope of deliverance on union. In a 
short time regiments from famous battle-fields landed unmo- 
lested on its soil ; hostile cannon were planted on its emi- 
nences and at the single outlet into the country ; troops daily 
paraded its streets, and the place wore the aspect of a garrison. 
Details of the petty annoyance to which its citizens were sub- 
jected were printed from time to time in the journals. The 
strange spectacle touclied the feelings of the patriots. Their 
admiration was raised by the genuine pluck evinced by the 
Bostonians in going on with their political action under the 
mouths of hostile cannon, and when this was in derogation 
of an act of parliament. The action had not been bolder when 
the town was free from troops. Thus the brave municipality 
stood manfully for the cause, exciting warm sympathy, in- 
tense interest, and the gravest apprehension. 

The suggestion appeared in several quarters simultaneously 
that contributions should be tendered for the relief of such 
of the indigent as might be sufferers by the operation of the 



326 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Port Act; it was approved and urged in the press, the pul- 
pit, public meetings, and general assemblies ; and was so 
promptly carried out that soon there was a flow from every 
quarter of cereals, live stock, provisions, wood, and money 
into Boston. The fraternal movement bore directly on the 
individual. The ardent and zealous workers in the cause in 
hundreds of localities, forming a circle more or less wide, 
went from door to door, from street to street, as they gath- 
ered the patriotic offerings ; and the talk in the shop, on the 
farm, in the commercial mart, in the home, would naturally 
be of acts of power full of injustice, of violated liberty, of 
patriots suffering for the cause. The names of contributors 
in some places are still to be seen. The list in Fairfax 
County, Virginia, has at its head the name of George Wash- 
ington for fifty pounds. The committees accompanied the 
gifts with letters laden with the deepest sympathy, and, as 
sterner events unfolded, — as will be seen in the next chap- 
ter, — with the most solemn pledges of support. A few sen- 
tences, selected from the earliest, will suffice Itere to show 
this fraternal spirit : " We feel the heavy hand of power, 
and claim a share of your sufferings." — '• Depend upon it we 
will further assist you with provisions and men if you need 
it." — "Our people are open and generous, firm and resolute 
in the cause of liberty ; hope the people of Boston remain firm 
and steady." — " Hold on and hold out to the last. As you 
are placed in the front rank, if you fail all will be over." — 
" Give us leave to entreat, to beg, to conjure you, by every 
thing that is dear, by every thing that is sacred, by the ven- 
erable names of our pious forefathers, who suffered, who 
bled in the defence of liberty, not to desert the cause in this 
trying crisis." — " Stand firm, and let your intrepid courage 
show to the world that you are Christians." These words 
were born of generous impulses and a noble enthusiasm. 
They revealed the fact that, beneath the diversity that char- 
acterized the colonies, there was American unity. The 
deeds they heralded were the blossoming of a rare public 



THE TEA ACT AND AMERICAN UNION. 327 

life, but the spirit was greater than the deeds. The blow 
dealt on Boston, like a wound on a single nerve, convulsed 
the whole body.^ 

The popular party were now enabled to prepare for the 
work in store for them by extending their organization and 
interchanging sentiments. They in every quarter chose 
committees of correspondence, sometimes in public meetings, 
as in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, but very gen- 
erally in meetings regularly called of the freeholders and 
other inhabitants of the parishes, towns, and counties, after 
the way of the town of Boston. It was remarked by John 
Adams, that " every city, county, hundred, and town on the 
continent" adopted the measure — he almost said, as if it 
had been "a revelation from above — as the happiest means 
of cementing the union : " .he added that the organization 
was actuated " by one great, wise, and noble spirit, — one 
masterly soul animating one vigorous body." ^ This was 
more enthusiastic than exact. The Canadas continued 
meanly to hold back ; some of the towns in the original 
thirteen colonies did not choose committees ; and here and 
there a town, after the choice, faltered and dismissed its 
committee.^ The opposition to the organization attempted 

1 The "Boston Gazette" of July 11, 1774, has the following, which illustrates 
the spirit of the times : — 

Messieurs Edes and Gill. 

'Tis an old and just observation that professions cost notliing; 'tis equally true 
that when a man parts with liis money in support of any cause, he evidences himself 
to be in earnest. I cannot but reverence my fellow-countrymen, dispersed through 
this and the other governments, for their liberal and unsolicited contributions to support 
the poor and suffering people of Boston during the present conflict. What amiable 
charity ! What glorious magnanimity is here displayed ! Shall such a race of patriots, 
shall such a band of friends, be ever subdued? No, my persecuted brethren of this 
metropolis, you may rest assured that the guardian God of New England, who holds 
the hearts of his people in his hands, has influenced your distant brethren to this 
benevolence. 'Tis a glorious pledge of that harmony, that unison of sentiment and 
action, which shall connect such a band of heroes, as to make a world combined 
against them to tremble. Cultivate this rich, this fruitful blessing, — an extensive 
union: when once 'tis eftected, it will intimidate your enemies, will animate your 
fl'iends, will convince them both that you must be invincible, and thus you will obtain 
a bloodless victory. G. 

2 Novanglus. John Adams, in the "Boston Gazette," dated Feb. 6, 1775. 

* I have a list of the dates of the formation of municipal committees in several of 



328 THE EISE OF THE KEPUBLIC. 

to do this in Boston in a town meeting ; but, after a debate 
of two days, they were signally defeated. This proceeding 
elicited a generous recognition of the labors of the Boston 
committee in an address from Rhode Island. " Your faith- 
ful services," it said, " have endeared you to the wise and 
good of every colony. Continue your indefatigable labors 
in the common cause, and you will soon see the happy success 
of them in the salvation of your country." ^ It is doing no 
injustice to other members of the committee to say that its 
records show Joseph Warren and Samuel Adams indefati- 
gable in its labors. 

The Tories wrote much about this organization in the press. 
They said, in describing the formation of the committees, that 
at first resolutions, drawn up by zealous partisans, were offered 
in public meetings ; then, the orator mounted the rostrum, 
and exerted his powers of eloquence to heat his audience with 
the blaze of patriotism with which he conceived himself in- 
spired ; and that from this fountain originated their authority. 
"It is a fountain," the writer said, "from which no legal 
authority can be derived : we know not where such prece- 
dents may terminate. Setting up such a power to control 
you is setting up anarchy above order : it is the beginning 
of republicanism. Nip this pernicious weed in the bud before 

the colonies, but its insertion would require large space. The action of the New- 
Hampshire and Rhode-Island towns has been noticed. (See p. 313.) The movement 
did not become general in the Southern colonies until after the passage of the Boston 
Port Act. Then the journals abound with accounts of local meetings. The counties 
in Maryland chose committees in the last of May and in June ; the counties of Virginia 
in June. It was said in the "Massachusetts Gazette " (Tory) of July 7, 1774: "The 
newspapers from all quarters, in every British American colony, so far as we have yet 
received intelligence, are chiefly filled with accounts of meetings and resolutions of 
towns and counties; all to the same purpose, complaining of oppression, proposing 
a congress, a cessation of intercourse with Great Britain, and a contribution for the 
relief of the Boston poor." The "Boston Gazette" of July 4 contains in full the 
proceeding of a meeting of '■ The Freeholders and other inhabitants of Frederick 
County," Va., held on the 8th of June, appointing a committee of correspondence; 
and of a meeting of " The Freeholders and Freemen of the City and County of 
Philadelphia" held on the 18th of June, appointing a committee, with John Dicken- 
son at its head. 

1 This address occupies nearly the first side of the "Boston Gazette" of Aug. 8, 
1774. 



THE TEA ACT AND AMEEICAN UNION. 329 

it has taken too deep root." This record of the Tories is 
the shading of the picture of these times, which serves to 
bring out in bright colors the action of the patriots. 

The expressions in favor of a congress became frequent in 
various quarters after the passage of the Tea Act. On the 
passage of the Port Act the demand for a congress was gen- 
eral. The timid regarded this measure as most likely to 
procure a redress of grievances and restore harmony : the 
bold urged it as the first step in the direction of forming an 
independent American commonwealth. It was assented to 
by politicians — of whom Joseph Galloway, of Philadelphia, 
was the type — who were halting by the way, and ultimately 
took the royal side ; by Whigs, represented by John Dicken- 
son, who never .seemed ready to give up the hope of reconcilia- 
tion ; and it was desired above all other measures by the class 
represented by Christopher Gadsden, Richard Henry Lee, 
and Samuel Adams, to give to union the power of organiza- 
tion and law. About a month after the reception of the 
Port Act, the press stated that a congress " was the general 
desire of the continent, in order to agree on effectual measures 
for defeating the despotic designs of those who were endeavor- 
ing to effect the ruin of the colonies." ^ 

During the month of May propositions for a congress were 
adopted by several public meetings ; and when the condition 
of intercommunication is considered they may be regarded 
as independent of each other. They shew the ripeness of 
public opinion for this measure. The committee in New York 
requested the patriots of Massachusetts to designate the time 
and place ; and they decided to do this through the general 
assembly. 

Meantime General Gage arrived from England fresh from 
a jiersonal interview with the king. He was the commander 
of the British array in America ; and, as the successor of 
Hutchinson, he bore a commission as the Governor of Mas- 
sachusetts. A report was current to the effect that, when 

1 Boston Evening Post, June 20, 1774. 



330 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

he landed in Boston, he would be treated with indignity ; 
]jut he was received (May 17) with every mark of respect 
by the civil authorities and the military, and a vast concourse 
of the inhabitants. When his coimnission was read in the 
council chamber, salutes were fired and the people cheered. 
In the afternoon an elegant dinner was served in Faneuil 
Hall, which was attended by the principal characters of the 
town.i A few days after he went to Salem, escorted by a 
party in carriages. They were met, about noon, by the civil 
authorities and the military, and formed a grand procession. 
There he received the compliments of a great number on his 
accession to his new office, and his safe arrival at the place 
of his residence. It was hoped that this gracious reception 
would remove any unfavorable impression which report 
might have created as to the character and disposition of the 
inhabitants. 2 

The assembly met on the 25th of May, as usual, in 
Boston. The members took the oaths of abjuration, sub- 
scribed the Declaration, chose Thomas Gushing speaker, 
Samuel Adams clerk, and elected twenty-eight councillors. 
On the next day Governor Gage negatived thirteen of the 
twenty-eight, among whom were James Bowdoin, John Win- 
throp, and John Adams. He summoned the members to the 
council chamber, informed them that he had the king's 
particular commands for holding the General Court at Salem 
after the 1st of June, until His Majesty should signify his 
royal will and pleasure for holding it again in Boston. The 
House asked the Governor to appoint a day of fasting and 
prayer, to petition the Almighty that the people of this 
province might stand favorably in the eyes of the king, and 
be directed in wise and proper measures to establish their 
just rights, liberties, and privileges, and that harmony migiit 

1 Boston Gazette, May 30, 1774. This issue contains the noble resolves of the 
town of Providence, of May 17, recommending the call of a congress and the abolition 
of negro slavery. They will compare favorably in manner and matter with any 
adopted up to this time in the colonies. 

2 Essex Gazette, June 7, 1774. 



THE TEA ACT AND AMEEICAN UNION. 0^1 

be restored between Great Britain and the colonies. The 
Governor (May 28) adjourned the court, to meet on the 
seventh day of June. 

Hence the assembly was in session on the seventeenth day 
of June in the old and quiet town of Salem. It contained 
members who voted for the resolve of 1764, inviting aU the 
assemblies to concert of action ; for the call of the congress of 
1765 ; for the Circular Letter of 1768 ; and who were of the 
"glorious Ninety-Two" who refused to obey the king's order 
to rescind this Letter. The doors of the chamber in which 
they met were locked, as was usual when important business 
was to be transacted. Samuel Adams submitted resolves 
designating the first day of September as the time, and 
Philadelphia as the place, for holding the congress ; providing 
for the appointment of five delegates, and for a tax on the 
towns of five hundred pounds to defray their expenses. While 
these resolves were under consideration, the secretary of the 
colony, Thomas Flucker, bearing a message from the Governor, 
applied for admission. On being denied, he stood on the 
stairway leading to the hall, and read to the crowd a procla- 
mation dissolving the assembly.^ The House, however, went 
on with its business. The resolves were adopted, and the 
speaker was ordered to transmit them to the speakers of the 
assemblies of the continent.^ 

1 It is stated in Rushworth's Collections, i. 558, that just before Sir Edward Coke 
was about to utter, in committee of the whole, the speech in which he said, "Let us 
put up a Petition of Right," the key was brought up, and none were to go out with- 
out leave first asked. 

2 The following is a selection of the matter relating to a congress, after the passage 
of the Tea Act: — 

The " Boston Gazette " of Aug. 2, 1773, in a spirited appeal urging a congress, 
says: " Many and great are the advantages that may result fi-om such a congress or 
meeting of American States, and it should be forwarded as fast as possible." 

Samuel Adams, in the "Boston Gazette," Sept. 13, over the signature of "A.," 
suggests that the next petition should be by " the joint wisdom of the whole in a 
congress, or some other way conformable to the plan of union proposed by Virginia; " 
saying, " It would certainly be inconsistent with that plan of union for this or any 
other colony to come into a new system of American policy without consulting the 
whole" A writer in the same paper recommends "that a congress of American 
States be assembled as soon as possible, draw up a Bill of Rights, and publish it to 



332 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Meantime there was an adjournment of what was called 
" The Port Act Meeting " held on the same day in Faneuil 
Hall. Great numbers attended. John Adams was the 
moderator. The principal object of the meeting was to hear 

the world; choose an ambassador to reside at the British court, to act for the United 
Colonies; appoint where the congress shall annually meet; and how it may be sum- 
moned upon an extraordinary occasion." 

Hutchinson wrote to John Pownal, Oct. 18, 1773, " The leaders of the party give 
out openly that they must have another convention of all the colonies." 

The "Boston Gazette" of Dec. 2, 1773. has a piece which says: "There is no 
time to be lost. A congress, or a meeting of the States, is indispensable." 

John Hancock iu the annual oration on the 5th of March, 1774, urged that the 
posture of aft'airs demanded a general congress. 

A piece dated New York, April 26, 1774, and copied into the " Boston Evening 
Post" of June 6, says: "A congress of deputies from the several colonies is thought 
to be absolutely necessary, to devise means of restoring harmony between Great 
Britain and her colonies, and prevent matters from coming to extremities." 

In a town meeting in Providence, K.I., called bj- warrant, on the 17th of May, 
1774, it was voted " that the deputies of this town be requested to use their influence, 
at the approaching session of the general assembly of this colony, for promoting a 
congress, as soon as may be, of the representatives of the general assemblies of the 
several colonies and provinces of North America, for establishing the firmest union, 
and adopting such measures as to them shall appear the most effectual to answer that 
important purpose, and to agree upon proper measures for executing the same." 
This vote was immediately printed in the newspapers, and is copied into the "Massa- 
chusetts Gazette," of May 30, 1774. It is the first recommendation of a congress in 
print by an organized body I have met. The committee of correspondence, in a letter 
(May 17) addressed to the Boston committee of correspondence, sny: "We trust 
your town will be for a general congress of the American States being convened as 
soon as may be, that an opposition to the unrighteous impositions may be entered 
into by all the colonies, without which we all agree the cause must fail." 

The committee of Philadelphia, representing a respectable number of the inhabi- 
tants, in a calm letter dated May 21, 1774, addressed to the committee of corre- 
spondence of Boston, expressed the opinion that "the first step that ought to be 
taken" is to call a general congress, and promised to obtain the sense of the people 
on this question. It is stated in the New-York papers that copies of this letter were 
sent to New York and to the Southern colonies. It was copied in full into the 
"Edinburgh Advertiser" of July 22. 

The committee of correspondence of the city of New York, in a letter dated May 
23, addressed to the committee of correspondence of Boston, say that " a congress 
of deputies from the colonies in general is of the utmost moment, that it ought to be 
assembled without delay:" we "request your speedy opinion of the proposed 
congiess, that, if it should meet with your approbation, we may exert our utmost 
endeavors to carry it into execution." Under the date of "New York, May 30," 
copied into the "Essex Gazette" of June 2, the fact is stated that the grand com- 
mittee had proposed a congress. 

Eighty-nine members of the House of Burgesses of Virginia met on the 27th of 
May, at the long room called the Apollo, in the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, 
after the House had been dissolved by Earl Dunmore, and signed an association; and 



THE TEA ACT AND AMERICAN UNION. 

the report of a committee appointed at a previous meeting to 
provide employment for the poor. They, through Warren, 
stated that they thought best to defer reporting till they 
had heard from the other governments. There was much 
written and said at this period about payment for the tea 
that had been destroyed. The advice on this point to the 
patriots from eminent Whigs was contradictory. " I can- 

they were joined by a number of clergymen and others. In this way they "recom- 
mended to the committee of correspondence that the^' communicate with the sev- 
eral corresponding committees, on the expediency of appointing deputies from the 
several colonies of British America, to meet in a general congress, at such a place 
annually as shall be thought most convenient; there to deliberate on those general 
measures which the united interests of America may from time to time require." 
The whole proceedings, under the date of "Williamsburg," and occupying a 
column and a half, are in the "Boston Gazette" of June 13, 1774. The committee 
of correspondence of the Burgesses (May 28) say in their circular letter to the other 
committees: "The propriety of appointing deputies from the several colonies of 
British America, to meet annually in t;jneral congress, appears to be a measure ex- 
tremely important and extensively useful, as it tends so effectually to obtain the 
united wisdom of the whole in eveiy case of general concern. We are desirous to 
obtain your sentiments on this subject." 

On the 15th of June the Khode-Island assembly, in the opinion "that a finn and 
inviolate union of the colonies was absolutely necessary, appointed two delegates to 
attend a congress at such time and place as might be agreed upon;" who were in- 
structed " to procure a regular annual convention of representatives of all the colo- 
nies," &c. These resolves were printed in the Boston newspapers of June 20, 1774. 

In this varied action in behalf of a congress no time or place was named. Thej' 
were designated as follows : — 

The Connecticut committee of correspondence, in a letter addressed on the 3d of 
June to the Boston committee of correspondence, made suggestions as to time and 
place, and the next day sent a copy of this letter to the New-York committee. 

The New-York committee, on the 7th of June, in a letter to the Boston com- 
mittee of correspondence, requested them "to appoint the time and place for holding 
the congress." 

The resolves were adopted by the Massachusetts assembly on the 17th of June, 
when one hundred and twenty-nine members were present. Only twelve dissented. 
The preamble and first resolve were as follows : " This House, havmg duly considered 
and being deeply affected with the unhappy differences which have long subsisted and 
are increasing between Great Britain and the American colonies, do resolve: That a 
meeting of committees from the several colonies on this continent is highly expedient 
and necessary to consult upon the present state of the colonies, and the miseries to 
which they are and must be reduced by the operation of certain acts of parliament 
respecting America ; and to deliberate and detennine upon wise and proper measures 
to be by them recommended to all the colonies for the recovery and establishment of 
just rights and liberties, civil and religious, and the restoration of union and harmony 
between Great Britain and the colonies, most ardently desired by all good men." 
The time tixed was the first daj' of September, and the place Philadelphia, or any 
other place that should be judged most suitable by the committee. 



334. THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

not," Franklin wrote from London, " but wish and hope 
that compensation would be made to the company ; " but 
Gadsden, of Charleston, wrote, " Don't pay for an ounce of 
the damned tea." The subject was discussed in the meet- 
ing. The committee of correspondence laid before the 
town, probably through Warren, the answers they had 
received from the circulars the town had sent. They were 
directed to write to all the other colonies and acquaint them 
that the town was awaiting with anxiety the result of a con- 
tinental congress in whose wisdom they confided, and in 
whose determination they should cheerfully acquiesce. The 
meeting, according to the journals, was never exceeded in 
firmness and unanimity : not one had any thing to say in 
favor of paying for the tea ; and all were willing to endure 
the worst rather than surrender the rights of America. 

This was a memorable day. In the evening the choice 
spirits of the popular party, who had figured in the meeting in 
Faneuil Hall and in the assembly at Salem, met at Warren's 
residence. Adams, Gushing, Quincy, Warren, Young, were 
of the number; and they formed. Young the next day wrote, 
" an important and agreeable company." The spirit evinced 
in the meeting in Faneuil Hall, the action at Salem relative 
to the congress, the intelligence in the journals, a spirited 
letter from Baltimore, cheered their hearts : a letter was 
read from New York, which was pronounced " as encouraging 
as any thing they had from any part of the continent." 
They could not know that a Massachusetts assembly should 
never again act under the authority of the crown, or that the 
province that day sent forth to serve them in the congress 
a patriot who was soon to be the chief magistrate of an 
independent nation. They had manfully performed duties 
expected from them. " Our rejoicing," one of the band 
wrote, " was full, from an interchange of interesting advices 
from all quarters." 

The patriot just referred to, John Adams, was in his 
thirty-ninth year. He was born in Braintree, graduated at 



THE TEA ACT AND AMERICAN UNION. 335 

Harvard, taught a school in "Worcester, studied law, and, 
on the recommendation of Jeremiah Gridley, eminent in the 
profession, was sworn as an attorney. He had a strong 
desire for the approbation of the wise and good, and had 
formed the resolution never to commit any meanness or in- 
justice in the practice of the law. He had an early ambition 
to rise in his profession. By industry he became a learned 
lawyer, and by nature he was an honest one. He served 
his native town as a selectman ; after he removed to Boston, 
was a representative a single year in the legislature ; and 
won much reputation by acting as counsel for the British 
soldiers who were concerned in the " Boston massacre." 
His heart was with the cause of the patriots, and his erudi- 
tion was ever at their service. His labor with his pen was 
valuable. He uttered so many ringing words that he has 
been called the Martin Luther of the Revolution. He did 
not attend the public meetings ; did not always approve of 
the movements of the patriots ; and mingled so little in 
practical politics that, down to this day, he was rather the 
counsellor than an actor, and was only a private man honored 
by a few marks of the confidence of his fellow-citizens.^ If 
he had in large measure conceit, envy, and vanity, he had 
also honesty and integrity, and a noble and pure heart, the 
aspirations of which were ever for the advancement of his 
country and the welfare of his race. He was impulsive, 
frank, and generous. He lacked the confidence in the people 
that some of his co-laborers possessed, which led him to 
embrace strong conservative views of government, and to 
lean to aristocratic features. He accepted the position of a 
delegate to the congress, where his greatness of character 
and large ability gave him a commanding position as a 
leader ; and he soon became identified with the important 
measures of the Revolution. 

The resolves calling a congress were printed in the news- 
papers and immediately transmitted to the other colonies, 

1 Life of John Adams, by his grandson, Hon Charles Francis Adams, p. 149. 



836 THE RISE OF THE EEPUBLIC. 

which acquiesced in the time and place designated. The 
whole action was most satisfactory to the patriots, who again 
sounded praises to a Massachusetts assembly. One now 
wrote : " I am extremely pleased with the spirit and glorious 
conduct of your General Court. They are a band of patriots, 
fit to be intrusted with the rights and liberties of a people, 
and whose resolution and good sense would do them honor 
in any country under heaven." ^ 

The popular party were now pledging themselves to abide 
by the decisions the congress might come to in relation to 
a general plan for a redress of grievances. The method 
generally suggested was the old one of commercial non- 
intercourse. There was a stern determination to have it 
efficient. One of the Virginia Burgesses wrote, in sending 
out a moderate agreement, " We have no other weapons to 
fight with." The Boston committee said, " It is the last and 
only method of preserving the land from slavery without 
drenching it in blood ; " and they sent out a vigorous " Solemn 
League and Covenant," the signers to which agreed, "in the 
presence of God," not to buy goods from Great Britain or 
consume any, to break off dealings with all who bought 
them, and publish their names to the world. This covenant 
made a great noise. It drew from the Tories a protest sub- 
mitted in a town meeting in Faneuil Hall, and from Governor 
Gage a proclamation terming it an illegal and traitorous com- 
bination to distress the British nation, and enjoining the 
officers of the law to apprehend and hold for trial all who might 
sign or circulate it.^ This insane step gave an impetus to the 

1 A New-York letter, dated June 26, 1774, in the "Boston Gazette" of July 4. 

2 The solemn league and covenant was decided upon (June 2) by the Boston 
committee of correspondence. Joseph Warren reported it. The committee sent it 
to the towns. The " Massachusetts Gazette " (Tory) printed it on the 2-3d of June. 
It elicited voluminous comment. The next issue of this paper (June 30) contains the 
Proclamation by the Governor " to discourage illegal combinations" and against the 
league and covenant. This issue also has an account of the proceedings of a town 
meeting held in Faneuil Hall, June 27, in which this covenant was read. Also a 
protest against it, dated June 29, signed by one hundred and twenty-eight citizens, at 
the head of whom was Harrison Gray. 



THE TEA ACT AND AMERICAN UNION. 337 

movement. " We have not a man but will sign," the Pep- 
perrell committee wrote by the hand of a French war hero, 
William Prescott.^ In Hardwick, Brigadier Ruggles, a mag- 
istrate, gave out word that he " would commit to jail any 
man who presumed to sign the covenant ; " when " upwards 
of a hundred persons put their names to it."^ The Virginia 
patriots also were entering into a combination to distress the 
British nation. Their convention arraigned this proclama- 
tion in scathing terms, and nobly resolved to stand by 
Massachusetts in case an attempt was made by Gage to 
carry it out; a resolve that in England was looked upon as 
an overt act of treason.^ 

These movements were premature. However impolitic 
the method of non-intercourse turned out to have been, there 
was great unanimity in urging it ; but not in relation to the 
form, or as to the articles which an agreement should include. 
It was unwise to enter upon a measure affecting largely 
material interests, and depending for its success on a gen- 
eral concurrence, before there could be a consultation of all 
the colonies. It was, besides, inconsistent with a sentiment 
long inculcated, that any plan aifecting the common cause 
ought to be agreed upon by a common council. In this the 
popular party were so harmonious, it was now said (July 4), 
that the accounts from every post brought the resolutions of 
the cities, towns, and counties, containing " assurances of 
their sending deputations to assist at a grand congress 
of representatives of all the colonies, — to whose wisdom, 
firmness, and fortitude, the liberty, property, and whole 
interest of this free and august continent are to be dele- 
gated." * 

The resolutions here referred to embody in a striking 

1 Letter to the Boston committee, July 4, 1774. 

2 Boston Gazette, July 4, 1774. 

8 The following is in the "Edinburgh Advertiser" of Oct. 4: "The declaration 
of the Virginians, that it was lawful to repel force by force in case any measures were 
taken to carry the Proclamation of General Gage into execution, is looked upon here 
as an overt act of treason, and implies a rebellious intent." 

* Boston Evening Post, July 4, 1774. 

22 



338 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

manner the determination of the time ; and constitute a 
class of facts which seem to have been overlooked, but are 
worthy of attention. Thus the freeholders of Baltimore 
County, in Maryland, pronounced in favor of forming an 
association in relation to imports and exports to be agreed 
upon in a general congress, and of cutting off all dealings 
with the parties who would not come into the plan. Other 
counties in that province voted similar propositions ; and a 
convention composed of delegates from all of them was held 
in Annapolis, in which Matthew Tilghman presided ; which 
adopted the recommendation and the pledge. Both were 
reiterated in other colonies in the votes of towns, counties, 
and provincial conventions. The foremost revolutionary 
names are connected with these proceedings. Christopher 
Gadsden took part in a great meeting at Charleston, S.C, 
which " most solemnly agreed to abide by the decisions of 
the congress ; " and in the debates at a meeting in the city 
of New York, which voted " to abide by and observe" these 
decisions, Alexander Hamilton, then an unknown youth, 
shone like a star. In Pennsylvania a " provincial meeting 
of deputies" from the counties went so far as to pledge 
themselves to break off all dealings with any individual in any 
town or colony that did not adopt the plan agreed upon ; and 
among the delegates were John Dickinson, James Wilson, 
Thomas Mifflin, Joseph Reed, and Anthony Wayne. No 
colony was more decided on the recommendation and the 
pledge than Virginia. In Fairfax County, where Washington 
was the chairman of the meeting, the suggestion was not only 
that Virginia, but that the associating colonies, ought to break 
off dealings with the places which should refuse to carry out 
the plan adopted by congress. In Albemarle County, Jeffer- 
son penning the resolves, the pledge was accompanied by the 
suggestion that dealings should be cut off " from every part 
of the British Empire that should not break off their com- 
merce with Great Britain." A convention of delegates from 
all the counties was held, in August, at Williamsburg ; and 



THE TEA ACT AND AMERICAN UNION. 339 

this body reiterated the pledge to abide by the decisions of 
the congress, and declared that those who refused ought to 
be regarded as inimical to the country. Thus it was well- 
nigh the universal voice of the people that the recommenda- 
tions of the congress should have the force of laws. 

This embodiment of the public will by the qualified electors 
in the municipalities, and through the instrumentality of 
representatives in the conventions, bore the impress of regu- 
larity. The pledge related only to matters in which all had 
a common interest. It was confined to dealing with the 
mother-country in procuring a redress of grievances. In 
relation to this, the great point readied was a solemn pledge 
to submit to the decision of the majority, " the vital 
principle of republics." The recommendations of the colo- 
nies in congress assembled were to be observed as a para- 
mount rule of action. This may be regarded as the germ of 
the important provision of law incorporated thirteen years 
later into " The more perfect Union ; " namely, " that this 
Constitution, and the laws of the United States made in pur- 
suance thereof, and all treaties, shall be the supreme law of 
the land, any thing in the laws of any State to the contrary 
notwithstanding." The remarkable action did not pass 
unobserved. The Tories denied the lawfulness of making 
pledges in advance to abide by the decisions of the congress: 
the Whigs hailed them as an earnest that they meant to 
stand or fall toffether.^ 



1 The simple resolve to abide by the decision of the congress was so common that 
it may be said to have been universal. 

The colony of Maryland was among the first to vote to cut off all trade with those 
who would not acquiesce in tlie decision of the congress. The vote of Baltimore County, 
May 31, 1774, was in the following terms: "Resolved, unanimously, that the inhab- 
itants of this county will, and it is the opinion of this meeting that this province ought 
to, break off all trade and dealings with that colony, province, or town, which shall 
decline or refuse to come into similar resolutions with a majority of the colonies." 
Anne Arundell County adopted a similar resolution June 4; Caroline County, June 
18; Frederick County, June 20. Charles County, June 14, voted "to cut off 
dealing with the province, county, or town, that should refuse to associate in some 
rational means," &c. Other counties made similar pledges. A convention of the 
committees of the several counties was held at Annapolis, June 22, 1774. It voted, 



340 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

The Tea Act and its sequence, — the Boston Port Act, — 
were fulfilling their mission. They were the proximate cause 
of events, — one naturally and inevitably evolving another, — 
which liad the effect of changing the condition of the Ameri- 
can cause from discord to harmony, from confusion to order, 

unanimously, "that this province will break off all trade and dealings with that 
colony, province, or town, which shall decline or refuse to come into the general plan 
whiih may be adopted by the colonies." The proceedings of this convention were 
printed in full in the " Boston Evening Post," of July 25, 1774. The same issue has 
the proceedings of the inhabitants of South Carolina, at a meeting held in Chai-leston, 
on the 6th, 7th, and 8th of .July, in which they "most solemnly engaged to abide by 
the decisions of congress." 

The "Massachusetts Gazette" of Aug. 8, 1774, contains the proceedings of a 
meeting of the deputies chosen by the several counties in Pennsylvania, held in 
Philadelphia, July 15, 1774; occupying the whole of the first side of the paper, and 
a column on the next. Some of the resolutions were recorded as having passed by 
a majority; but the following was unanimously adopted: "That the people of this 
province will break off all trade, commerce, and dealing, and will have no trade, 
commerce, and dealing of any kind, with any colony on this continent, or with any 
city or town in such colony, or with an}'' individual in any such colony, city, or 
town, which shall refuse, decline, or neglect to adopt and carry into execution such 
general plan as shall be agi-eed to in congress." 

In New Jersey a meeting of the committees of the several counties was held on 
the 21st of July, at New Brunswick, and passed resolves in favor of a general con- 
gress, thfe commissioners to which should be empowered " mutually to pledge, each to 
the rest, the public honor and faith of their constituent colonies, firmly and inviolably 
to adhere to the determinations of the said congress." 

In Virginia the pledge was as thorough as that of the Solemn League and 
Covenant of Boston. The whole of one side of the "Boston Gazette" of Aug. 8, 
1774, is occupied with the proceedings, "At a general meeting of the Freeholders 
and Inhabitants of the County of Fairfax, on Monday, the eighteenth day of Juh', 
1774, at the court house, in the town of Alexandria, George Washingtox, Esq., 
chairman, and Robert Harrison, gentleman, clerk of said meeting." The 21st 
resolve is: "That, in the opinion of this meeting, this and the other associating 
colonies should break off all trade, intercourse, and dealings with that colony, 
province, and town, which shall decline or refuse to agree to the plan which shall be 
adopted by the General Congress." The Albemarle resolution, July 26, penned by 
Jefferson, is as follows: "To discontinue all commercial intercourse with every part 
of the British Empire which shall not in like manner break off their commerce with 
Great Britain." The Virginia convention of delegates from the counties of this 
colony at Willi.amsburg, Aug. 1, 1774, agreed upon a non-importation association, 
and voted not to deal with any merchant or trader who would not sign it, and to 
consider such persons as inimical to the country. 

The following paragraph ("Edinburgh Advertiser," Aug. 9, 1774) shows that 
this class of facts did not pass unobserved abroad : "The following provinces, to>^ns, 
counties, &c., in America, — viz., Connecticut, towns of Preston, I'armington, AVeth- 
ersfield, and Hartford; Williamsburg, in Virginia; Baltimore, in Maryland; Annap- 
olis ; Rhode Island and Providence, — have unanimously resolved to break off all trade 
and dealings with Great Britain, &c., and with that colony, province, or town, 



THE TEA ACT AND AMERICAN UNION. 841 

from the road to ruin to the broadway to national triumph. 
The Whig affirmed — the Tory conceded — that there was 
union. It rested on a public opinion so broad and deep — 
a determination so stern — that it had become a positive 
force. It was an invulnerable shield cast over American 
development ; and, in relation to matters common to all and 
properly pertaining to its sphere, ready to dominate over 
merely provincial ideas and objects. As the learned in 
academic halls reflected on the grand unfolding, they said : 
" The last and recent stroke of the parliament at our liber- 
ties has astonished America into a real and efficacious union, 
which it is beyond the power of Europe to dissolve." ^ A 
noble actor on the stage, throbbing with genuine patriotism, 
now wrote : " The Americans have one common interest. 
Natural allies, they have published to the world professions 
of esteem and confidence, aid and assistance : they have 
pledged their faith of mutual friendship and alliance. Not 
only common danger, bondage, and disgrace, but national 
truth and honor, conspire to make the colonists resolve to 
stand or fall together." ^ This salient sentence sums up 
American history down to this time. Under the fresh im- 
pulse of the next parliamentary stroke, the sentiment of 
American union became embodied in an association having 
the force of law. In truth such a union of mind and heart 
was the country. It was pronounced indissoluljle. On the 
flag floating over popular gatherings was the motto " Union 
and Liberty." They were facts and forces working together, 
and were correlative. The feeling thus early was union 

which shall decline or refuse to come into similar resolutions with the majority of the 
colonies." 

These votes were commented on with great severity in "The Congress Can- 
vassed," a pamphlet printed in New York, 1775. The writer says of the Whigs: 
"You had no right to make a promise implicitly to obey all their (congress) regula- 
tions, before you knew what they were, and whether they would interfere with the 
public laws of the government or not." — p. 40. 

1 Ezra Stiles, in Holmes's Life, July 00, 1774, p. 180. 

2 Josiah Quincy, Jr., Observations on the Boston Port Bill. This pamphlet was 
advertised in the Boston newspapers of June 16, 1774. 



842 THE RISE OF THE KEPUBLIC. 

and liberty, now and for ever : it seemed as though that gen- 
eration realized that there could be no union without liberty, 
and no genuine liberty without the power there was in union 
to protect it. Indeed, it was decreed in the regular channels 
by which the will of the people is collected and declared, — 
in a solemn pledge " of national truth and honor," — that 
those who were not true to American union were false to 
American liberty. 

y^ The history presented in the stages of the development of 
American union is not that of one leader, or of a few leaders, 
who planned a great political movement and created the 
spirit by which it was to be executed ; or who carried 
forward a people by the power of their intellect or the 
magnetism of their renown : it is rather the history of com- 
munities, who, however marked by diversity in their forms 
of local life, had really the foundation for a certain unity 
in being imbued with similar ideas, who were moved by 
similar impulses, and who alike aimed to guard the right to 
hold and improve the free institutions which they had devel- 
oped. A claim more just was never proffered at the foot- 
stool of power. A history more interesting and valuable 
cannot be presented to American youth. It shows, in these 
communities, a population of two and a half millions in 
action ; moving steadily forward — all marching together 
one way — towards an end which they earnestly and hon- 
estly disavowed and deprecated, but which, in the plan of 

>^ Providence, was the goal marked out for them to reach. 

The result thus far was real American union. During the 
ten years of the past struggle the popular leaders had incul- 
cated the sentiment that union was salvation. The fact of 
its achievement inspired the ranks of the party with enthu- 
siasm. It purified and magnified their work. " When I 
review," one writes, " the annals of the world, I am con- 
strained to believe that great things await America. When 
Liberty was well-nigh banished from every quarter of the 
globe, she found an asylum in this savage land. Learning, 



THE TEA ACT AND AMERICAN UNION. 343 

liberty, and every thing that ennobles the human mind, have 
constantly been travelling westward." These great things 
required a condition of freedom for their development. But 
the assumption of the right to tax, and the whole system of 
domination founded on this assumption, were repugnant to 
" the Saxon genius of liberty and law which English America 
inherited from the parent state." Ezra Stiles, who penned 
these words, prophesied : " If oppression proceeds, despotism 
may force an annual congress ; and a public spirit of enter- 
prise may originate an American Magna Charta and Bill of 
Rights, supported by such intrepid and persevering impor- 
tunity as even sovereignty may hereafter judge it not wise 
to withstand. There will be a Runnymede in America." ^ 

1 July, mi, Holmes's Life of Stiles, p. 180. 



CHAPTER IX. 

How A General Congress formed the Association of the United 
Colonies, and how Support was Pledged to the Inhabi- 
tants OF Massachusetts in Resisting the Alteration of 
their Charter. 

August, 1774, to 1775. 

While the popular party were choosing delegates to the con- 
gress and agreeing to abide by its decisions, the American 
cause received a fresh impulse through the passage in par- 
liament of two Acts altering the government of Massachu- 
setts. As the people were refusing obedience to these 
Acts, the congress met, formed " The Association of the 
United Colonies," and pledged support to the inhabitants 
of Massachusetts, in case it was attempted to carry the 
Acts into execution by force ; and this pledge was reit- 
erated in letters from towns and counties tendering life and 
fortune in defence of the cause. 

The king was unwearied in efforts to give direction to the 
measures relating to America. On the day the Port Bill was 
moved in parliament (March 14), he sent to Lord North 
a note, in which he urged an alteration of the charter of 
Massachusetts, and remarked that Lord Dartmouth was very 
firm as to its expediency .^ On the 28th of March, late at 
night, he expressed " infinite satisfaction " to the premier, 
because he had moved that " leave be given to bring in a 
bill for the better regulating the government of the province 
of Massachusetts Bay." In his explanatory speech on this 
occasion, Lord North described that government as being in 
"so forlorn a situation" that no governor could act. He 

1 Donne, Correspondence of George III., i. 174. 



THE REGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 345 

dwelt upon the defects in the civil magistracy, the doings 
of the town meetings, the mode of selecting jurymen, and the 
general need of strengthening the executive authority. He 
commended tlie bill which he proposed to bring in as calcu- 
lated " to purge that Constitution of all its crudities, and 
give a degree of strength and spirit to the civil magistracy 
and to the executive power." 

In the debate which followed, Lord George Germain not 
only approved of the objects specified by Lord North, but 
proposed to regulate other parts of the internal government, 
and particularly to alter the basis on which the council and 
the municipalities rested. He said : " There is a degree of 
absurdity, at present, in the election of the council. I can- 
not, sir, disagree with the noble lord ; nor can I think he 
will do a better thing than to put an end to their town meet- 
ings. I would not have men of a mercantile cast every day 
collecting themselves together, and debating about political 
matters : I would have them follow their occupations as 
merchants, and not consider themselves as ministers of 
that country. I would also wish that all corporate powers 
might be given to certain people of every town, in the same 
manner that corporations are formed here : I should then 
expect to see some subordination, some authority and order. 
. . . The juries require great regulation : they are totally 
different from ours. ... I would wish to bring the Consti- 
tution of America as similar to our own as possible. I 
would wish to see the council in that country similar to a 
House of Lords in this. . . . You have, sir, no government, 
no governor : the whole are the proceedings of a tumult- 
uous and riotous rabble, who ought, if they had the least 
prudence, to follow their mercantile employment, and not 
trouble themselves with politics and government, which they 
do not understand." On the conclusion of this speech. Lord 
North rose and said : "I thank the noble lord for every 
proposition he has held out: they are worthy of a great 



346 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

mind, and such as ought to be adopted." ^ The noble lords 
contrived to embody in their speeches " the ignorance and 
contempt of America pervading England, from the cedar to 
the hyssop on the wall." ^ 

There was much deliberation in the cabinet relative to the 
council, Lord Mansfield urging that the nomination of the 
members ought to be vested in the crown. The king wrote 
(April 14) to Lord North : "I find it so much the wish of 
the cabinet, that I cannot too strongly express my preferring 
your introducing the bill to-morrow that. is drawn up for 
vesting the nomination of the councillors in the crown." 
Accordingly the bill moved the next day by the obedient 
premier contained this important addition. He stated, that, 
upon the hints thrown out by Lord George Germain, he 
had altered also the mode of choosing juries. At nine 
o'clock that evening the king was " infinitely pleased " at 
the introduction not only of this bill, but also of the "bill 
for the impartial administration of justice," designed to aid 
the enforcement of the former law.^ The second reading 
(April 22) gave him "infinite satisfaction;" and he was 
again (May 3) " infinitely pleased " that the bill passed, 
and that the majority was so considerable.^ It received the 

1 This debate was printed in the Boston newspapers of May 19 and 23, 1774. It 
is m "Parliamentary History," vol. xvii. pp. 1192-1195. It will be observed that 
Lord George Germain proposed to substitute for the municipalities in America, a 
system like the sell-perpetuating councils (see above, p. 15) of England; and Lord 
North approved of all his propositions. 

2 Donne uses these words in a note (Correspondence of George III., i. 187). 

8 The king feared that the motion for leave to bring in the bill would be post- 
poned, and hence his unusual satisfaction. Ibid., i. 178. 

■* Letters of George III., of the dates in the text in Donne's Correspondence, i. 
181, 182, 183. On the 6th of May, the king, in a note to Lord North, dated Kew, 
fifty-one minutes past nine, p.m., writes: "The Bill for the better administration 
of justice in Massachusetts Bay, having been read a third time, and passed the House 
of Commons this day, after a short debate, with a great majority, gives me infinite 
satisfaction. Perseverance, and the meeting difficulties, as they arise, with firmness, 
seem the onlj' means of either with credit or success terminating public affairs. 
Your conduct on the American disturbances is a very clear proof of the justness of 
that proposition." The conduct of the Americans at this period supplied another 
very clear proof of the effect of this firmness and perseverance. 



THE KEGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 847 

royal assent on the 20th of May. The Act "for the impar- 
tial administration of justice" passed by similar majorities, 
and was signed at the same time. Both were to take effect 
from their passage. 

The Regulating Act made elections of the council under 
the charter void, provided that the board should consist of 
not less than twelve members nor more than thirty-six, and 
vested their appointment in the crown. The Governor was 
clothed with power to appoint and remove judges of the in- 
ferior courts, justices of the peace, and other minor officers. 
The Governor and council were to appoint and remove sher- 
iffs, who were authorized to select jurymen. Town meetings, 
except for the choice of officers, were forbidden, without per- 
mission of the Governor. The Act relating to the admin- 
istration of justice provided for tlie transportation of offenders 
and witnesses to other colonies or to England for trial. 
A Protest in the House of Lords objected that the parties had 
no notice of this proceeding, and had not been heard in their 
defence ; and that this Act invested " the Governor and coun- 
cil with powers with which the British Constitution had not 
trusted His Majesty and his privy council"; that "the lives, 
liberties, and properties of the subject were put into their 
hands without control." ^ 

These severe acts of naked injustice were inspired by that 
jealousy of the republican element which had tormented the 
Board of Trade ever since its formation, and which the Earl 
of Clarendon judged in his day had begun to ripen.^ They 
were designed as the beginning of the abridgment of English 
liberties, and of the remodelling of the Constitutions, which 
had long been desired by the school that distrusted the capac- 
ity of the ijeople for self-government. They involved the 
fmidamentals of personal liberty, trial by jury, discussion of 
political measm-es, and free assemblies. They struck at the 

1 Parliamentary History, xvii. 1323. The Protest was circulated widely in the 
American journals. 

2 See above, p. 15 ; also Lord Hillsborough's declaration in parliament, p. 250. 



348 THE RISE OF THE EEPUBLIC. 

general right of the colonies to mould their internal polity. 
In these Acts parliament assumed the power to alter the 
American Constitutions at its will and pleasure. If it could 
deal in this way with Massachusetts, it could deal in a sim- 
ilar way with all the colonies. In fact, the laws were a 
complete embodiment of the principle of the obnoxious 
Declaratory Act.^ 

These measures, on which hung great issues, were first 
made known to America through the drafts of the bills as 
moved in the House of Commons. They reached Boston 
on the second day of June, and were printed in the news- 
papers on the third. The action of the Boston committee 
was, as usual, prompt and decisive ; and the commit- 
tees throughout the province did not fall behind the Bos- 
ton committee in boldness and zeal, " We were chosen," 
wrote Samuel Adams to Charles Thomson, of Philadelphia, 
" to be, as it were, outguards to watch the designs of our 
enemies ; and have a correspondence w^ith almost every town 
in the colony. By this means we have been able to circulate 
the most early intelligence of importance to our friends in the 
country, and to establish a union which is formidable to our 
adversaries." ^ The legislative committee immediately trans- 
mitted these bills to the other legislative committees, with a 
circular in which they say: "These edicts, cruel and oppres- 
sive as they are, we consider but as bare specimens of what 
the continent are to expect from a parliament who claim a 
right to make laws binding us in all cases whatsoever." The 

1 Earl Russell (L!^ of C. J. Fox, i. 63) says of the Act altering the government 
of Massachusetts: "A measure more subversive of freedom, more contrary to all 
constitutional principles, and more likely to excite America against imperial authority, 
could not well be framed." 

Lord Mahon, in his History (vol. vi. p. 548) remarks: " How rash the precedent, 
at such a time, of dealing so lightly with a royal charter! How far wiser had it been 
to bear any amount of inconvenience from the defects of the existing fabric, rather 
than attempt its reconstruction at the veiy moment when the storm was raging 
around it! ... If one charter might be cancelled, so might all: if the rights of any 
one colony might hang suspended on the votes of an exaeperated majority in Eng- 
land, could any other deem itself secure? " 

2 Letter to Charles Thomson, May 30, 1774. 



THE REGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 849 

policy now marked out by the patriots of Boston is seen in the 
utterances of Samuel Adams, which continue to be calm and 
prophetic. " Boston suffers with dignity : if Britain, by her 
multiplied oppressions, accelerates the independency of her 
colonies, whom will she have to blame but herself? It is a 
consolatory thought that an empire is rising in America."^ 
" Our people think they should pursue the line of the Consti- 
tution as far as they can ; and if they are driven from it, 
they can then with propriety and justice appeal to God and 
the world. ... I would wish to have the humanity of the 
English nation engaged in our cause, and that the friends 
of the Constitution might see and be convinced that nothing 
is more foreign to our hearts than a spirit of rebellion. 
Would to God they all, even our enemies, knew the warm 
attachment we have for Great Britain, notwithstanding we 
have been contending these ten years with them for our 
rights." 2 These are not the words of one who was mixing 
a bitter cup, but rather of one who had schooled himself to 
take submissively the cup which the Providence of events 
might present. 

The popular party was then in the heat and glow of the 
noble enthusiasm inspired by the fact of union. It was 
natural that measures, which struck at the ancient right of 
local self-government should rouse general alarm and indig- 
nation. Those who had been moderate and wavering became 
resolute and resentful. The condemnation of these bills was 
spontaneous and withering. They were doomed to annul- 
ment before intelligence was received of their passage into 
laws ; and when Governor Gage received them officially, the 
public conTiction of their enormity had become embodied in 
the sternest action. 

A few illustrations of the temper and determination of the 
popular party must suffice. In Pennsylvania, a convention 
of all the counties characterized the proposed Acts as un- 

1 Letter to William Checkley, June 1, 1774. 
« Letter to Charles Thomson, June 2, 1774. 



350 THE RISE OF THE EEPUBLIC. 

constitutional, oppressive, and dangerous to the American 
colonies.^ A convention " of the whole province of Mary- 
land" declared that the bills, if passed into Acts, would lay 
a foundation for the utter destruction of British America.^ 
In South Carolina, a great meeting of freeholders from all 
parts of the province resolved, that, if these bills were 
allowed to go into effect, there would not be the shadow 
of liberty to person, or security to property, to His Majesty's 
subjects residing on the American continent.^ In Virginia, 
the freeholders of Fairfax County, George Washington in 
the chair — resolved, that, unless these cruel measures were 
counteracted, the end would be the ruin of the colonies; 
and that, should the town of Boston be forced to submit, 
the citizens of Fairfax should not hold the same to be bind- 
ing upon them, but, notwithstanding, would religiously main- 
tain and inviolably adhere to such measures as should be 
concerted by the general congress for the preservation 
of their lives, liberties, and fortunes.^ This action was 
crowned by the declaration of the convention of all the 
counties, in August, that, under the original Constitution of 
the American colonies, their assemblies had the sole right 
of directing their internal polity ; that the proclamation of 
General Gage was a plain declaration that this despotic 
viceroy would be bound by no law, and that an attempt to 
execute it would justify resistance and reprisal.^ 

The newspapers were laden with political appeals and the 

^ The proceedings of the Pennsylvania convention of deputies from the several 
counties, July 15, were printed in the "Boston Evening Post" of August 8. 

2 The proceedings in full of the meeting of committees, in session from June 22 to 
25, arc in the " Essex Gazette " of July 19. 

8 The resolves of this meeting of the 6th, 7th, and 8th of July are in the "Massa- 
chusetts Gazette " of July 26. They say that the proposed Acts, though levelled at 
Boston, "very manifestly and glaringly show, if the inhahitants of that town are 
intimidated into a mean submission to these Acts, that the like are designed for all 
the colonies. ... It is the duty of the inhabitants of all the colonies to support the 
inhabitants of Boston," &c. 

■* The proceedings of this meeting are in the "Boston Gazette" of August 8. 

6 The instruction of the convention to the delegates is in the "Boston Evening 
Post" of August 29. 



THE REGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 351 

proceedings of public bodies, enjoining unanimity and resolu- 
tion. They showed that the popular party were arrayed in 
solid phalanx against the Regulating Acts. " You," an ad- 
dress to Gage reads, " consider the opposition fomented by 
three or four factious men in Boston. You ought to know 
better, after reading the resolves of every province, city, town, 
and county on the continent. There arc no such reservoirs 
of public virtue in America as there are of corruption iu 
England. We are all alike charged with the fire of patriot- 
ism." 1 " Our country people," a letter says, " appear to be 
very firm : they look to the last extremity with spirit." ^ It 
was said in South Carolina : " One soul animates three mil- 
lions of brave Americans, though extended over a long tract 
of three thousand miles." ^ "If they [the ministers] ever 
subdue the spirit of New England, — may God forbid! — that 
instant the evil genius of Tyranny will begin to stalk over 
these premises with gigantic strides." ^ 

The injunction to the patriots of Massachusetts to act with 
efficiency came to them still more directly through letters 
addressed to the Boston committee from every quarter. A 
few sentences from these letters will serve to shew their spirit. 
" We view the attack made by the minister upon the colony 
of the Massachusetts Bay to be intended to pave the way to 
a general subversion of the constitutional rights of North 
America. It becomes, therefore, the duty of every American, 
who is not an apostate to his country, to pursue every jus- 
tifiable method to avert this impending calamity."^ "A 
more finished picture of despotism cannot be drawn by the 

1 The "Pennsylvania Journal" of August 17. This extract is from a sharp 
address to General Gage, copied into the " Essex Gazette " September 6. 

2 Boston Evening Post, August 8. 
8 Boston Gazette, August 15. 

* This extract is from a spirited and generous piece copied into the " Boston 
Evening Post," August 1, vrith this introduction: " The following piece, taken from 
the 'South-Carolina Gazette,' is republished here both on account of the excellent 
sentiments it expresses, which are applicable to all the British colonies, and to shew 
that our brethren in South Carolina concur with the other colonies in resenting and 
opposing the tyrannical Acts of the British parliament." 

6 Letter from Cape Fear, North Carolina, July 29. 



352 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

skill of man tlian is portrayed in the famous Declaratory 
Bill, nor could it be carried into more perfect execution than 
by the Boston Port Bill, and by two other Acts destroying the 
ancient rights of your colony. America perfectly knows 
that you are only designed for tlie first victim in the heca- 
tomb of sacrifice to be ofifered to the god of Oppression, and 
will not therefore willingly suffer you to bleed at the shrine 
of his brazen altar, until we all bleed and die together." ^ 
" We mean, in the first place, to attempt to appease the fire 
(raised by your committing the India tea to the watery ele- 
ment as a merited oblation to Neptune) of an ambitious and 
vindictive minister by the blood of rams and of lambs: " [a 
flock of sheep came with the letter] " if that do not answer 
the end, we are ready to march in the van, and to sprinkle 
the American altars with our hearts' blood, if occasion 
should be. . . . The public virtue now exhibited by Ameri- 
cans exceeds all of its kind that can be produced in the 
annals of the Greeks and Romans. Behold them from 
north to south, from east to west, both publishing their 
sentiments and supporting their poor. . . . You are held 
up as a spectacle to the whole world. All Christendom are 
longing to see the event of the American contest. And do, 
most noble citizens, play your part manfully, of which we 
make no doubt. Your names are either to be held in eter- 
nal veneration or execration. If you stand out, your names 
cannot be too much applauded by all Europe and all future 
generations."^ " At this period of your suffering, and on the 
reception of the second and third unrighteous Acts of par- 
liament, usurping authority and oppressing your town and 
province, we are anxiously looking that some important 
event will take place. It becomes us to be watchful; and 

1 Lebanon correspondence, August 8. William Williams was one of the signers 
of this letter. 

2 Parish of Brooklyn, in Pomfret, Connecticut, August 11. Col. Israel Putnam, 
one of the signers, came on with a donation of sheep: was the guest of Joseph Warren ; 
talked with old friends in the British army, whom he met subsequently in battle at 
Bunker Hill. 



THE REGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 353 

there is reason to fear that nothing short of another kind of 
resistance will regain and secure our privileges." ^ 

Tiuis the will of the people, collected generally through the 
forms in which they were accustomed to proceed in political 
affairs, and expressed with as much regularity as circum- 
stances would permit, was declared with respect to the two 
new Acts. It was, that they should share the fate of the 
Stamp Act and the Tea Act, even though the shedding of 
blood might be the consequence. And this verdict is found 
of record Ijefore the general congress met, or before the Acts 
were attempted to be put in force. In the natural course 
of events, a crisis was reached, involving ideas in deadly 
conflict with each other : for the public opinion of twelve 
colonies may be said to have enjoined the inhabitants of 
Massachusetts, for the sake of civil liberty, to refuse obe- 
dience to the two Acts, as imperatively as the king's in- 
structions, in behalf of feudal England, enjoined General 
Gage to carry them into execution. 

While these interesting events were occurring, the cabi- 
net were taking the necessary steps to execute the two Acts. 
Ex-Governor Hutchinson now arrived in London, and was 
summoned (July 1) immediately to the royal closet. For 
nearly two hours he was interrogated by the king in rela- 
tion to the affairs of Massachusetts. One of the first ques- 
tions naturally was : " How did you leave your government, 
and how did the people receive the news of the late meas- 
ures in parliament?" Hutchinson replied: "When I left 
Boston (June 1), we had no news of any Act of parlia- 
ment, except the one for shutting up the port, which 
was extremely alarming to the people." The king asked: 
" Pray, Mr. Hutchinson, what is your opinion of the effect 
from the new regulation of the council ? Will it be agree- 
aV)le to the people, and will the new appointed councillors 
take the trust upon them ? " Hutchinson replied : " I have 
not been able to inform myself who they are. I came 

^ Preston, August 20. 
23 



354 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

to town late last evening, and have seen nobody. I 
think much will depend upon the choice that has been 
made." The king rejoined: " Inquiry was made, and pains 
taken that the most suitable persons should be appointed." 
Hutchinson remarked: "The body of the people arc dis- 
senters from the Church of England, — what are called 
Congregationalists. If the council shall generally be selected 
from the Episcopalians, it will make the change more dis- 
agreeable." This is all the conversation that was minuted 
by Hutchinson relative to these important Acts.^ The im- 
pressions which the king received from the interview were set 
down two minutes past nine, that evening, in a note which he 
addressed to Lord North. "I am now well convinced," he 
wrote, " they will soon submit : he (Hutchinson) owns the 
Boston Port Bill was the only wise and effectual method that 
could have been suggested for bringing them to a speedy sub- 
mission, and that the change in the legislature will be a means 
of establishing some government in that province, which, till 
now, has been one of anarchy." ^ Hutchinson deceived 
himself and the king, if he placed any reliance on the char- 
acter or religion of the persons selected for councillors ; and 
never was a ruler more wofully in error than was George 
III. as to the temper of the Americans. 

The instructions of the cabinet relative to the execution 
of these Acts were prepared under the influence of this fatal 
error. They bear date June 3d, and were transmitted through 
Lord Dartmouth to General Gage. They were quite elaborate, 
and instructed him that whatever violences were committed 
must be resisted with firmness, that the constitutional author- 
ity of this kingdom over its colonies must be vindicated, and 
that not only its dignity and reputation, but its power, nay, 
its very existence, depended on that moment. "For," said 
Lord Dartmouth, "should those ideas of independence, which 

1 Extracts from the. Journal of Thomas Hutchinson, dated July 1, 1774. I am 
indebted to Mr. Bancroft for this interesting MS. 

2 George III. to Lord North, July 1, 1774, two minutes past nine, p.m. Donne, 
i. 194. 



THE REGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 355 

some dangerous and ill-designed persons here are artfully 
endeavoring to instil into the minds of the king's American 
subjects, once take root, that relation between this kingdom 
and its colonies which is the bond of peace and power will 
soon cease to exist; and destruction must follow disunion." 
Here power commanded, in terms as imperative as the lan- 
guage afforded, the execution of the illegal Acts as com- 
pletely as though they were constitutional and just. 

Governor Gage did not officially receive the two Acts and 
the instructions in relation to them until the 6th of August, 
when he also received appointments for thirty-six council- 
lors.^ Twenty-four of the number accepted. An informal 
meeting was held on the 8tli of August, and all were noti- 
fied to assemble on the 16tli for the transaction of busi- 
ness.^ The sheriffs summoned persons to serve as jurors. 
The judges prepared to hold courts, and the Governor to 
support their authority by military force. He had at his 
command troops from famous European battle-fields. One 
regiment was stationed at Salem, where he resided ; one 
at Castle William, in Boston Harbor. In Boston, one regi- 
ment was at Fort Hill, and four regiments were on the Com- 
mon. Nearly thirty ships of war were in the harbor. 

The Governor now sent for the selectmen of Boston, and 
told them he should endeavor to put the Regulating Act 
into execution, especially the clause in relation to holding 
town meetings; and if any ill consequences followed, they 
only would be blamable. Town meetings, however, were 
held all over the province, and chose delegates to county 
conventions. The committees of correspondence were es- 
pecially active, and held continual conferences. The words 
of a noble and brave man, who fell at Bunker Hill, will 
serve as a type of Massachusetts in this hour of trial : " I 
consider the call of my country as the call of God, and 

1 The names of the thirty-six councillors appointed by His Majesty were printed 
in the " Massachusetts Gazette " August 11. 

'^ The names of thirteen councillors, who met and took the oath of office on the 
16th, were published in the newspapers of the 18th. 



356 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

desire to be all obedience to such a call. The committees 
of correspondence for the several towns in the county of 
Worcester have assembled, are in high spirits, and perfectly 
united. The committees of Cambridge and Charlestown are 
to have a conference to-morrow. I trust the whole county 
of Middlesex will soon be assembled by delegates. I have the 
greatest reason to believe will choose to fall gloriously in the 
cause of their country rather than meanly to submit to 
slavery."^ A meeting of these committees from several 
counties, held in Faneuil Hall, matured measures for secur- 
ing a thorough resistance to the two Acts, and for convening 
a Provincial Congress. The community was now thoroughly 
roused. It was said in the public prints : " The spirit of 
the people was never known to be so great since the settle- 
ment, and they were determined to die or to be free." 

A great uprising began on the 16th of August at Great 
Barrington. When the judges attempted to hold a court, 
the farmers thronged to the place, filled the building, and 
blocked up the avenue leading to it. The sheriff commanded 
them to make way for the court, but the answer was: "No 
court will be submitted to but on the ancient laws and 
usages." In Boston, the chief justice and associate justices 
and barristers, arrayed in their robes, went unmolested in 
procession from the town house in King, now State Street, 
to the court house in Queen Street, and took their accus- 
tomed places ; but the jurors, both grand and petit, stood up 
and refused to be sworn. In Salem, the Governor issued a 
proclamation warning all persons against attending a town 
meeting, which was nullified within the sound of his drums. 
The mandamus councillors who accepted felt the storm of 
public indignation. As one, an honored citizen of Plymouth, 
and a Congregationalist, took his seat in the church on Suu- 
day, a large number of persons rose and walked out of tlu; 
house ; when another in Bridgewater, a deacon, also a Con- 
gregationalist, read the psalm, the congregation refused to 

1 Thomas Gardiner to the Boston committee of correspondence, August 12. 



THE EEGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 357 

sing ; and several councillors living in the country were 
comi)cllecl by gatherings of the people to resign. The 
county officers were similarly dealt with, and were univer- 
sally compelled to decline their appointments. The patriots 
said that " their souls were touched by a sense of the wrongs 
already offered them, as well as those which were threatened," 
and that " they would never rest, while one man who had 
accepted any office under the new Acts was possessed of any 
])ost of power or profit." ^ They averred that herein they 
acted in accordance with the Christian duty of each individ- 
ual. They used no more force than was required to effect 
the object they had in view, — complete disobedience to the 
new Acts ; and, expressing an abhorrence of mobs, they de- 
clared " that, in a contest so solemn and a cause so great, 
their conduct should be such as to merit the approbation of 
the wise, and the admiration of the brave and free, of every 
age and country." " On experiment," Dr. Ramsay remarks, 
"it was found that to force on the inhabitants a form of 
government to which they were totally averse was not 
within the fancied omnipotence of parliament."^ 

The resistance to the two Acts was thorough. It is no 
injustice to other patriots to say that in this perilous duty 
Joseph Warren rose to the height of a rare opportunity to 
serve his country. The occasion brought forth his power. 
He is found in the committee room, in the town meeting, in 
the county congress, in great popular demonstrations, and 
in jwrsonal consultations with the Governor. His soul was 
ui arms. His unstudied words were a mirror, reflecting the 
j)assion and resolve of indignant freemen as they stood man- 
fully for their rights, and burn and glow with the fire of the 
time. " Where liberty " — he wrote to a Connecticut town, 
in the thick of action, without a thought of himself — " where 

1 Essex Gazette, August 30. The " Gazette" of this date contains full details of 
the uprising; among them, the dealing with the councillors in Plymouth, Bridge- 
water, and Taunton. It contains also many resignations of officers appointed undef 
the new Acts. 

2 nistory of the American Revolution, i. 132. 



358 THE RISE OF THE EEPUBLIC. 

liberty is the prize, who would shun the warfare, who wouhl 
stoop to waste a coward thought on life ? We esteem no sacri- 
fice too great, no conflict too severe, to redeem our inestimable 
rights and privileges. 'Tis for you, brethren, for ourselves, for 
our united posterity, we hazard all ; and permit us humbly to 
hope that such a measure of vigilance, fortitude, and perse- 
verance will still be afforded us, that, by patiently suffering 
and nobly daring, we may eventually secure that more 
precious than Hesperian fruit, the golden apples of freedom. 
We eye the hand of Heaven in the rapid and wonderful 
union of the colonies ; and that generous and universal 
emulation to prevent the sufferings of the people of this 
place gives a prelibation of the cup of deliverance. May 
unerring Wisdom dictate the measures to be recommended 
by the congress! May a smiling God conduct this people 
through the thorny paths of difficulty, and finally gladden 
our hearts with success ! " ^ 

The congress now engrossed the public mind. It convened 
when the disobedience of the people of Massachusetts to the 
Regulating Act was representing the determined and stern 
feeling of the thirteen colonies, and when the conviction was 
growing that arms would have to decide the contest. " Let 
us remember," a Virginian wrote, "that with the sword our 
fathers obtained their constitutional rights, and by the sword 
it is our duty to defend them." ^ In the conviction that 
this duty must be performed, Washington, ready to stake his 
fortune and his life in the cause, said in the Virginia con- 
vention: "I will raise one thousand men, subsist them at 
my own expense, and march myself at their head for the re- 
lief of Boston."^ About the time these words were spoken, 

1 Letter to Stonington, August 24. On the 20th, Warren says to Samuel Adams: 
"I am constantly busied in helping forward the political machines in all parts of the 
province. ' — Life and Times of Warren, p. 352. 

2 To the Gentlemen of the General Convention of Virginia, Williamsburg, .July 
28, 1774. 

8 This was in August, 1774. Works of John Adams, ii. 3G0. Mr. Lynch, ot 
South Carolina, said to John Adams that this was the most eloquent speech that 
ever was made. 



THE REGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 359 

Joseph Hawlej, of Massachusetts, embodied his views of the 
questions in issue, and his belief that the colonies " must 
fight," in a paper remarkable for its insight and comprehen- 
siveness.^ Samuel Adams had long been of this opinion ; 
and John Adams, after his appointment as a delegate, said : 
" We shall have to resist by force." ^ He read Hawley's 
paper to Patrick Henry, who responded: "I am of that 
man's mind." Adam Stephen, a Virginia soldier, urged in 
strong terms the necessity of military preparation, in a letter 
addressed to a member elect of the congress, and expressed 
the general feeling in relation to this body, as he wrote : " I 
expect to see the spirit of the Amphictyons shine as that 
illustrious council did in their purest times, before debauched 
with the Persian gold. The fate of America depends upon 
your meeting ; and the eyes of the European world hang 
upon you, waiting the event." ^ 

On the fifth day of September most of tlie delegates 
elected to the congress were in Philadelphia. They were 
invited by the speaker of the Pennsylvania assembly to hold 

1 This paper, entitled " Broken Hints," was read to Patrick Henrj' in the autumn 
of 1774, and was first printed in Niles's "Acts of the Revolution," 1822, p. 324. It 
was prepared before the middle of August ; for, when it was written, there might 
have been a question whether the Regulating Act should be " immediately withstood 
and resisted," but at that date the question was settled: the Act was annulled. 

The paper begins: " We must tight, if we can't otherwise rid ourselves of British 
taxation, all revenues, or the constitution or form of goverment enacted for us by 
the British parliament. It is evil against right, — utterly intolerable to every man 
who has any idea or feelmg of right or liberty." 

This noble utterance has the following on union : — 

" Our salvation depends upon an established, persevering union of the colonies. 

" The tools of administration are using every device and effort to destroy that 
anion, and they will certainly continue to do so. 

"Thereupon, all possible devices and endeavors must be used to establish, improve, 
brighten, and maintain such union. 

" Every grievance of any one colony must be held and considered by the whole as a 
grievance to the whole. This will be a difficult matter, but it must be done." 

2 As John Adams and Samuel Adams were conversing in John Adams's otfice in 
Boston, immediately after their appointment as delegates, -John Adams said, in the 
presence of .lohn Trumbull: " I suppose we must go to Philadelphia together, and 
enter into non-importation, non-consumption, and non-exportation agreements; but 
they will be of no avail: we shall have to resist by force." — Pitkin, i. 277. 

8 Letter to R. H. Lee, Aug. 27, 1774. 



360 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

their sessions in the State House, but decided to meet in the 
hall owned by the carpenters, — a fine brick building, having 
commodious rooms for the use of the committees, and an 
excellent library in the chambers. It is still in good preser- 
vation. At ten o'clock in the morning the delegates met at 
the City Tavern, walked to Carpenters' Hall,^ and began the 
sessions of the Continental Congress. 

This assembly, when all the members had taken their seats, 
consisted of fifty-five delegates, chosen by twelve colonies. 
They represented a population of two millions two hundred 
thousand, paying a revenue of eighty thousand pounds ster- 
ling.2 Georgia, which did not elect delegates, gave a promise 
to concur with her " sister colonies" in the effort to maintain 
their right to the British Constitution, -;- which, according to 
the American interpretation, was " a Constitution founded on 
reason and justice, and the indelible rights of mankind " :^ 
words that went to the depths of the American cause. In 
general, the delegates elect were men of uncommon ability, 
who had taken a prominent part in the political action of 
their several localities, had won public confidence, and were 
fair exponents of the aims, feelings, and political ideas of the 
country. Some had corresponded ; one was in the Albany 
convention of 1754 ; eight were members of the congress 
of 1765 ; but nearly all met for the first time,* 

Each of the three divisions by which the colonies were 
usually designated ■ — the New England, the Middle, and the 
Southern colonies — had on the floor of the conarress men 



1 The hall has chairs in which the delegates sat, — interesting Revolutionary 
memorials, — and the following inscription: "Within the-e walls Henry, Hancock, 
and Adams inspired the delegates of the colonies with nerve and sinew for the toils of 
war resulting in National Independence." 

2 This was the calculation made by R. II. Lee, and probably did not include 
slaves. — John Adams's Works, ii. 362. 

8 Resolutions of a general meeting of the inhabitants of Georgia, Aug. 10, 1774. 

* Stephen Hopkins was in the Albany convention. Thomas McKean and Caesar 
Rodney of Delaware, Philip Livingston of New York, John Dickinson of Pennsyl- 
vania, Thomas Lynch, John Rutledge, and Christopher Gadsden, of South Carolina, 
and Eliphalet Dyer of Connecticut, were in the Stamp Act Congress. 



THE REGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 361 

of a positive character. New England presented, in John 
Sullivan, vigor; in Roger Sherman, sterling sense and in- 
tegrity ; in Thomas Gushing, commercial knowledge ; in 
John Adams^ large capacity for public affairs ; in Samuel 
Adams, a great character, with influence and power to or- 
ganize. The Middle colonies presented, in Philip Livingston, 
the merchant prince of enterprise and liberality ; in John 
Jay, rare public virtue, juridical learning, and classic taste; 
in William Livingston, progressive ideas tempered by con- 
servatism ; in John Dickinson, " The Immortal Farmer," 
erudition and literary ability ; in Csesar Rodney and Thomas 
McKeau, working power ; in James Duane, timid Whigism, 
halting, but keeping true to the cause; in Joseph Galloway, 
duwnright Toryism, seeking control, and at length going to 
the enemy. The Southern colonies presented, in Thomas 
Johnson, the grasp of a statesman ; in Samuel Chase, activity 
and boldness ; in the Rutledges, wealth and accomplishment ; 
in Cliristopher Gadsden, the genuine American ; and in the 
Virginia delegation, an illustrious group, — in Ricliard Bland, 
wisdom ; in Edmund Pendleton, practical talent ; in Peyton 
Randolph, experience in legislation ; in Ricliard Henry Lee, 
statesmanship in union with high culture; in Patrick Henry, 
genius and eloquence ; in Washington, justice and patriotism. 
" If," said Patrick Henry, " you speak of solid information 
and sound judgment, Washington unquestionably is the 
greatest man of them all." Those others who might be 
named were chosen on account of their fitness for duties 
which the cause required. Many had independent fortunes. 
They constituted a noble representation of the ability, cul- 
ture, political intelligence, and wisdom of twelve of the 
colonies.^ 

The delegates represented communities, so far as their 



1 " The congress is such an assembly as never before came together, on a sudden, 
in any part of tlie world. Here are fortunes, abilities, learning, eloquence, acute- 
ness, equal to any I ever met with in my life." — John Adams, Sept. 29, 1774 
.'Works, ix. 34G). 



862 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

domestic relations were concerned, independent of each 
other. Each had its own assembly, which had framed the 
local laws. Indeed, there were no political relations what- 
ever between them, except the important one of being alike 
British subjects, of owing allegiance alike to the British 
crown, and being alike proud of the glories of the British 
flag. But the measures counted on to produce division in 
their councils tended to union. The evidences were increas- 
ing, that these communities, in which diversity had so long 
ruled paramount, were sternly resolved to embody theh" 
sentiment of union in a common bond that should operate 
with the force of law. Thus " colonies differing in religious 
opinions and in commercial interests, in everything depend- 
ent on climate and labor, in usages and manners, swayed by 
reciprocal prejudices, and frequently quarrelling with each 
other respecting boundaries, found themselves united in 
one representative body, and deriving from that union a 
power that was to be felt throughout the civilized world." ^ 
The object aimed at, as stated in the credentials of the dele- 
gations,^ and especially in those of the two powerful colonies 

1 Bancroft's History, vii. 127. 

2. The delegates were chosen and commissioned as follows. 

From Rhode Island. — Stephen Hopkins, Samuel Ward. Chosen by the assembly, 
June 15. Credentials signed by J. Wanton, the Governor. Authorized "to conisult 
upon proper measures to obtain a repeal of the several Acts, . . . and upon proper 
measures to establish the rights and liberties of the colonies upon a just and solid 
foundation, agreeable to the instructions given you by the general assembly." 

Massachusetts. — Thomas Gushing, Samuel Adams, .John Adams, Robert Treat 
Paine. Chosen by the assembly, June 17. Credentials signed by Samuel Adams, 
clerk. Authorized " to consult upon the present state of the colonies, . . . and to 
deliberate and determine upon wise and proper measures, to be by them recommended 
to all the colonies, for the recovery and establishmentof their just rights and liberties, 
and the restoration of union and harmonj' between Great Britain and her colonies, 
most ardently desired by all good men." 

Maryland. — Matthew Tilghman, Thomas Johnson, Robert Goldsborough. Wil- 
liam Paca, Samuel Chase. Chosen, June 22, by committees of the counties assembled 
in convention. Their credentials were the resolve of the convention. It authorized 
them "to effect one general plan of conduct, operating on the commercial connection 
of the colonies with the mother country, for the relief of Boston, and preservation of 
American liberty." 

Connecticut. — Eliphalet Dyer, Roger Sherman, Silas Deane. Chosen by the 
committee of correspondence, July 13, who were authorized to act by the assembly. 



THE KEGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 363 

of Massachusetts and Virginia, was to obtain a redress of 
grievances, and to restore harmony between Great Britain 
and America,which, it was said, was desired by all good men. 

Credentials sigued by the committee of correspondence. Authorized to " consult and 
advise with the commissioners or committees of the several English colonies in 
America, on proper measures for advancing the best good of the colonies." 

New Hampshire. — John Sullivan, Nathaniel Folsom. Chosen, July 21, in a 
convention of deputies from the towns. Their credentials were the vote of the con- 
vention. Authorized "to devise, consult, and adopt such measures as may have the 
most likely tendency to extricate the colonies from their present difficulties; to secure 
and perpetuate their rights, liberties, and privileges; and to restore that peace, har- 
mony, and mutual confidence which once subsisted between the parent country and 
her colonies." 

Pennsylvania. — Joseph Galloway, Samuel Rhoades, Thomas Mifflin, Charles 
Humphries, John Morton, George Ross, Edward Riddle. Chosen, Jul}' 22, by the 
assembly. Their credentials were the vote of the assembly. The delegates were 
authorized "to consult together on the unhappy state of the colonies, and to form 
and adopt a plan for the purposes of obtaining a redress of grievances, ascertaining 
American rights upon the most solid and constitutional principles, and for establishing 
that union and harmony between Great Britain and her colonies which is indispen- 
sably necessary for the welfare and happiness of both." 

New Jersey. — James Kinsey, William Livingston, John Dehart, Stephen Crane, 
Richard Smith. Chosen, July 23, by committees of the counties met in conventi6n. 
Credentials signed by fourteen of the members. Authorized "to represent the colony 
of New Jersey." 

Delaware. — Caesar Rodney, Thomas McKean, George Read. Chosen, August 1, 
by a convention of the repi-esentatives of the freemen of the government < f the three 
counties of New Castle, Kent, and Sussex. Credentials signed by Csesar Rodney, 
chairman. Authorized " to determine upon all such prudent and lawful measures 
as maj' be judged most expedient for the colonies immediately and unitedly to adopt, 
m order to obtain relief for an oppressed people, and the redress of our general 
grievances." 

South Carolina. — Henry Middleton, John Rutledge, Thomas Lynch, Christopher 
Gadsden, Edward Rutledge. Appointed first by a general meeting held in Charles- 
ton on the sixth, seventh, and eighth days of July, and ratified by the assembly on 
the second day of August. Credentials signed by Thomas Farr, Jr., clerk of the 
assembly. Authorized " to agree to and effectually prosecute such legal measures 
as in the opinion of said deputies, and the opinion of the deputies so to be assembled, 
shall be most likely to obtain a repeal of" certain Acts, and a redress of grievances. 
Virginia. — Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, Patrick 
Henry, Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison, Edmund Pendleton. Chosen, August 5, 
by meeting of delegates of the counties. Credentials were the vote of the convention. 
It authorized them "to represent the colony in a general congress," in a body con- 
vened " to procure a redress for Massachusetts, secure British America from the rav- 
age and ruin of arbitrary taxes, and speedily to procure the return of that harmony 
and union so beneficial to the whole empire, and so ardently desired by all British 
America." 

North Carolina. — William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, Richard Caswell. Chosen, 
August 25, at a provincial convention. Credentials signed by John Harvey, mod- 



364 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

It was the conviction that this might be done through a Bill 
of Rights, in which the limits of the powers of the colonies 
and the mother country might be defined. 

The congress was organized by the choice of Peyton Ran- 
dolph of Virginia for President, and Charles Thomson of 
Philadelphia, not a member, for Secretary. The President 
was widely known. The Secretary had identified himself 
with the cause in Philadelphia, and was destined to serve it 
long and faithfully. The credentials of the members were 
next read and approved. A discussion then arose on the rules 
to be observed in determining questions, in which Patrick 
Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and John Adams participated, 
and which was renewed the next day, when it was agreed that 
each colony should have one vote.^ Congress then decided 
to appoint a committee to state the rights of the colonies, the 
instances in which those rights had been violated, and the 
most proper means to obtain their restoration ; and another 
committee to examine and report upon the statutes affecting 
the trade and manufactures of the colonies. On this day 
Samuel Adams, in answer to the objection to opening the 
sessions with prayer, grounded on the diversity of religious 
sentiment among the members, said that he could hear a 
prayer from a man of piety and virtue, who was a friend to 
the country, and moved that Mr. Duche, an Episcopalian, 
might be desired to read prayers to the congress on the 
following morning.^ The motion prevailed, and congress 
soon after adjourned. 

erator, and Andrew Knox, c^^-k. "Invested with such powers as may make any 
acts done by them, or consent given in behalf of this province, obligatory in honor 
upon every inhabitant hereof, who is not an alien to his country's good, and an apos- 
tate to the liberties of America " 

New York. — James Duane, John Jay, Philip Livingston, Isaac Low, William 
Floyd, Henry Wisner, John Alsop, John Herring, Simon Boerum. They were 
chosen by counties, and their credentials wei'e "certificates of their election" by the 
people. The last delegate, Boerum, took his seat October 1. 

1 " Resolved, That, in determining questions in this congress, each colony or prov- 
ince shall have one vote; the congress not being possessed of, or at present able to 
procure, proper materials for ascertaining the importance of each colony." — Jour- 
nals, i. 11. 

8 Letters of John Adams, i. 23. 



THE REGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 365 

That evening the report came that the British ships were 
bombarding Boston. The public mind was deeply agitated. 
"War! war! war! was the cry," John Adams wrote. 
The members met the next morning in this agitated state. 
The Reverend Jacob Duch^ appeared with his clerk and in 
his pontificals ; read several prayers ; then the Psalm for the 
seventh day of the month, — the thirty-fifth, — which began: 
" Plead Thou my cause, Lord, with them that strive with 
me, and fight Thou against them that fight against me. Lay 
hand upon the shield and buckler, and stand up to help 
me:" and then, John Adams said, he " une.:pectedly to any- 
body struck out into an extemporary prayer for America, 
for the congress, for Massachusetts, and especially for Boston, 
which was so fervent that it filled the bosom of every man 
present." On this day the members of the two committees 
already named were appointed, when the congress adjourned 
for several days. 

The congress sat with closed doors. Nothing transpired 
of their proceedings, except the organization and the rule 
of voting. The members bound themselves to keep their 
doings secret until a majority should direct their publication. 
Their decisions were awaited in the deepest anxiety. 

The members during two days were " made miserable " 
by the alarming reports from Boston.^ These reports grew 
out of the measures of General Gage in disarming the prov- 
ince. A party of soldiers, at night, removed a quantity of 
powder from Charlestown to Castle William; and in the 
morning thousands of the people gathered in Cambridge. 
The alarm spread, and reached Colonel Putnam in Connec- 
ticut. He stated in a letter addressed to Captain Cleaveland 
that the British men-of-war and the troops were firing on 
Boston, and called on him to rally all the forces he could, 

1 Silas Deane wrote September 6 : " An express arrived from New York confirm- 
ing the account of the nipture at Boston. All is in confusion. I cannot say that all 
faces gather paleness, but they all gather indignation, and everj- tongue pronounces 
revenge. The bells toll muffled, and the people run, as in the case of an extremity, 
they know not where nor why." — Connecticut Historical Collection, ii. 174. 



y()6 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

and marcli immediately to Massachusetts. The prompt 
response to this call by the militia showed a general and 
earnest determination to defend the cause. Soon after this 
alarm (September 14) an admirable series of resolves, passed 
by the people of the county of Middlesex in Massachusetts, 
were laid before congress. They elicited praise, but did not 
occasion action. Three days later (September 17) congress 
received the resolves of the county of Suffolk, w^hich included 
Boston. They declared that the people owed an indis- 
pensable duty to God and their country to preserve those 
liberties for which the fathers fought and bled, expressed 
the determined opposition of the inhabitants to the Acts 
altering the charter, and promised cheerful submission to 
such measures as the continental congress might recommend. 
They were aglow with the soul of Joseph Warren, who drew 
them up ; and they elicited a flow of generous sentiment and 
manly eloquence. Expressions of esteem, admiration, and 
affection for the people of Boston and of Massachusetts fell 
from the members. Congress, in resolves passed unani- 
mously, expressing feeling for the sufferings " of their coun- 
trymen in the Massachusetts Bay," most thoroughly approved 
the fortitude and wisdom with which the opposition to minis- 
terial measures had been conducted, and earnestly recom- 
mended a perseverance in the same firm and temperate 
conduct that was expressed in the resolutions of the county 
of Suffolk. They voted that contributions from all the colo- 
nies for alleviating the distress of their brethren of Boston 
ought to be continued " so long as their occasions might 
require." These resolves, together with the Suffolk resolves, 
were ordered to be printed. ^ 

Nothing material of the doings of congress was published 
for three weeks. During this period the two committees 

1 The "Boston Evening Post" of Sept. 26, 1774, says: "By Mr. Paul Revere, 
who returned express from Philadelphia last Friday evening, we have the following 
important intelligence." The resolves were sent to Joseph WaiTcn by the President 
of Congress — Peyton Randolph — and Thomas Gushing, the letters of which were 
pjinted. 



THE REGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 367 

already named were maturing a system of measures. The 
deliberations showed that the Tories had a champion in 
Joseph Galloway. His early speeches do not indicate 
divergence from the "Whigs. He held that he stood on the 
ground of English liberties, — that the colonies ought of right 
to mould their " internal police," and that they ought to be 
represented in the body that levied taxes on them ; and these 
were Whig fundamentals. Nor was he more ardent than 
the Whigs in professing allegiance to the crown, nor more 
earnest in desiring reconciliation and tlie preservation of the 
union between the colonies and Great Britain. But Galloway 
made the preservation of this union the paramount object, 
while the Whigs made the preservation of their rights and 
liberties paramount. Here was the gulf between them. 
Galloway distrusted republicanism, and in any event was 
opposed to independence: the popular leaders, imbued with 
the republican spirit, meant to preserve their rights, even 
with the sword if needful, though this might involve a 
separation. 

On the 28th of September Galloway introduced a " plan 
for a proposed union between Great Britain and the colo- 
nies," ^ prefaced with a resolve averring that the colonies 
"held in abhorrence the idea of being considered indepen- 
dent communities of the British government." This plan 
provided for a president-general to be appointed by the 
crown, and a grand council, consisting of representatives 
chosen every three years by the assemblies, to meet annually 
or oftener, its Acts to be subject to the revision of parlia- 
ment, while it was to have the right in turn to veto Acts of 
parliament relative to the colonies ; with the further pro- 
vision that each colony should retain its present constitution 
and power of regulating " its internal police in all cases 
whatsoever." The scheme was intended to perpetuate the 

1 This plan was printed in pamphlet form in 1774, and was reprinted in his tract 
of 1780, entitled " Historical and Political Reflections on the Rise and Progress of 
the American Rebellion." His examination before the House of Commons in 1779 
was printed in that year in London. 



368 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

dependence of the colonies on England, and was proposed 
with the approbation of the loyalist Governors, Franklin of 
New Jersey, and Golden of New York. Galloway urged it 
in an elaborate speech, and it was supported by Duane, Jay, 
and Edward Rutledge. It was not only rejected, however, 
but the members came at last to view it with so much odium 
that the motions in relation to it were ordered to be expunged 
from the journals. This result was an end to the loyalist 
influence in congress. After Galloway came out openly on 
the British side, he wrote much about this plan, his own 
course, and the aims of the patriots. His shuffling and 
equivocation, his misrepresentations and ascription of mean 
motives to his political opponents, reveal a total want of 
that integrity of character which shines conspicuous in the 
men he defamed, and shows that he was unworthy of the 
popular confidence which he had enjoyed. 

Soon after the defeat of this insidious plan, Paul Revere 
of Boston, who had been despatched as an express, arrived 
(October 6) in Philadelphia, in the midst of the discussion 
on the reports of the committees. He bore a letter from the 
Boston committee of correspondence relative to the course of 
General Gage, who was proceeding on the assumption that 
the time for reasoning had passed, and that force only could 
decide the controversy between the colonies and Great 
Britain. The letter contained details of the fortification of 
Boston; stated that it was fast becoming a garrison, and that 
its inhabitants might be held as hostages to compel submis- 
sion to the law. It promised in their name, that, if congress 
should advise them to leave the town , they would obey. The 
letter also stated that the Governor, after summoning the 
legislature, dissolved it by proclamation before it could con- 
vene; and it asked the advice of congress for the future 
guidance of the people. In response, that body adopted a 
letter to be sent to Gage, reported by Lynch, Samuel Adams, 
and Pendleton. In this letter, congress, as " the represen- 
tatives of His Majesty's faithful subjects in all the colonies 



THE REGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 369 

from Nova Scotia to Georgia," stated to the Governor that 
the approbation of the conduct of the people of Massachusetts 
was universal ; that it was " the determined resolution of the 
colonies, for the preservation of their common rights, to 
unite in opposition" to the late Acts of parliament; and 
that the congress had been appointed the guardians of their 
rights and liberties. Pointing to the peaceable demeanor of 
the inhabitants, they requested him to discontinue the forti- 
fications in and about Boston, and avoid the horrors of civil 
war. The terms and tone of this communication were as 
though the colonies formed one political power. 

Congress now adopted five resolves in relation to Massa- 
chusetts. The first was agreed upon on the 8th of October, 
and was as follows : " That this congress approve of the 
opposition made by the inhabitants of Massachusetts Bay to 
the execution of the late Acts of parliament ; and if the same 
shall be attempted to be carried into execution by force, in 
such case all America ought to support them in their oppo- 
sition." The report of the debate on this important resolve 
is meagre. It was strongly opposed, and especially by Gal- 
loway and Duane ; and when overruled, they asked permis- 
sion to enter a protest against it on the journals, which was 
refused. On leaving congress, they exchanged memoran- 
dums, to the effect that they had objected to it on the ground 
of its treasonableness. 

On the next day, Sunday, Washington wi'ote a letter in 
which he dwelt on the affairs of Massachusetts, expressing 
indignation at the violation of its rights, and sympathy for 
the peril of its inhabitants. He had spent much time with 
the delegates from this colony, and he remarked that it was 
not the wish of that government, or of any other on the con- 
tinent, to set up for independence, yet that none would ever 
submit to the loss of rights and privileges essential to the 
happiness of every free state. " I am well satisfied," he 
wrote, " that no such thing [as independence] is desired fjy 
any thinking man in all North America ; on the contrary, 

21 



370 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

that it is tlie ardent wish of the warmest advocates for liberty 
that peace and tranquillity, on constitutional grounds, may 
be restored, and the horrors of civil discord prevented."^ 
This comprehensive and decisive statement is in harmony 
with the whole scope of private and public utterances of the 
popular leaders, — those on whom rested the responsibility 
of the political action. 

Four additional resolves were passed by congress on the 
Monday and Tuesday (lOtli and 11th) following. They 
declared that all persons in Massachusetts who consented to 
take office under the new Acts ought to be considered wicked 
tools of the despotism that was preparing to destroy the 
rights which God, nature, and compact had given to America, 
and ought to be held in al)horrence by all good men. They 
advised the inhabitants of this colony to submit to a suspen- 
sion of the administration of justice, when it could not be had 
under laws based on the charter; and recommended a peace- 
able demeanor towards the troops, and perseverance in the 
line of the defensive. The five resolves were ordered to be 
transmitted by the President to the Boston committee, as 
the advice of congress on the subject-matter of their letter.^ 

While these events were occurring, the two committees 
already named were proceeding with their deliberations. 
The notices of their debates indicate the patience required 
to surmount obstacles before a result could be reached. 

1 AVashinglon, Oct. 9, 1774, to Capt. Robert Mackenzie, of the British armj-, in 
Boston. This remarkable letter is in Sparks' s Writings of Washington, ii. 399. 

2 John Adams, Oct. 7, 1774, wrote as follows to William Tudor: "If it is a 
secret hope of many, as I suspect it is, that the congress will advise to offensive 
measures, they will be mistaken. I have had opportunities enough, both public and 
private, to learn with certainty the decisive sentiments of the delegates and others 
upon this point. The}^ will not, at this session, vote to raise men or money, or arms 
or ammunition. Their opinions are fixed against hostilities and rupture, except they 
should become absolutely necessary ; and this necessity they do not yet see. They 
dread the thoughts of an action, because it would make a wound which would never 
be healed; it would fix and establish a rancor which would descend to the latest 
generations; it would render all hopes of a reconciliation with Great Britain des- 
perate; it would light up the flames of war, perhaps through the whole continent, 
which might rage for twenty years, and end in the subduction of America as likely 
as in her liberation." 



THE REGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 371 

The committee on trade and manufactures was the first to 
submit a report, which was (September 19) referred to the 
committee on the rights of the colonies, when Thomas 
Gushing, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Mifflin were added 
to this committee. In three days it reported. The dis- 
cussion in the congress on this report was long. The busi- 
ness was simplified by a vote (September 24) to limit its 
action, "at present, to the consideration of such rights as 
had been infringed by Acts of parliament since 1763." On 
the 14th of October the members agreed upon a Declaration 
of Rights. 

This paper claimed for Americans the immunities of free 
subjects within the realm of England, so far as circumstances 
would allow. It claimed that they had a coequal right to the 
British Constitution, — the constitution of their country, — 
and that they had '"a free and exclusive power of legislation 
in their provincial legislatures, where their rights of repre- 
sentation could alone be preserved in all cases of taxation 
and internal polity," subject to the negative of the sover- 
eign. It contained ten resolves, in which were enumerated 
the rights that could not be legally taken from them, or 
altered or abridged by any power whatever; and it speci- 
fied eleven Acts or parts of Acts of parliament which were 
necessary to be repealed, in order to restore harmony between 
the colonies and Great Britain. A compromise resolution, 
framed with great care, disclaimed any purpose of refusing 
obedience to Acts " restrained to the regulation of the ex- 
ternal commerce, for the purpose of securing the commercial 
advantages of the whole empire to the mother country." In 
this paper it was stated that the good people of twelve colonies 
liad appointed deputies to sit in a general congress to obtain 
such an establishment as might prevent their religion, laws, 
and liberties from being subverted; and, as their English 
ancestors had done, they made their Declaration of Rights. 
After calmly averring that Americans could not submit to 
the Acts wliich had been specified as grievous, congress 



372 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

conclude by stating that " for the present they had only re- 
solved to pursue tlie following peaceable measures : " 1. To 
enter into a non-importation, non-consumption, and non- 
exportation agreement or association ; 2. To prepare an 
address to the people of Great Britain, and a memorial to 
the inhabitants of British America ; 3. To prepare a loyal 
addiess to His Majesty." 

With the exception of two of the articles, the Declaration 
was adopted unanimously. The phrase in some instances 
is similar to that in the Bill of Rights of William and Mary. 
It presents the colonies as a unit in the vital matters of rep- 
resentation, free discussion, free assemblies, and trial by 
jury, — in a word, self-government. It was hoped — faintly 
by some, strongly by others — that the basis laid down in 
this interesting paper might lead to an act of settlement, 
fixing the terms for a permanent union between America 
and England.^ 

Congress decided (September 27) on commercial non- 
intercourse with Great Britain as the means of restoring 
American rights. It (September 30) appointed a committee 
to bring in a plan for carrying this measure into effect, who 
reported on the 12th of October. The measure deeply 
affected great material interests ; and the difficulties met 
and overcome were a foretaste of what was to be encountered 
in the formation of the more perfect union under the Con- 
stitution. At one stage of the proceedings — on the question 
of restricting rice — three of the South-Carolina delegation 
left the congress, but soon returned, their point having been 
conceded. 

1 The committee who reported the Declaration consisted of Sullivan and Folsom, 
of New Hampshire; the Adamses and dishing, of Massachusetts; Hopkins and 
Ward, of Rhode Island; Dyer and Sherman, of Connecticut; Duane and Jay, of 
New York; Livingston and De Hart, of New Jersey; Galloway, Biddle, and iMifflin, 
of Pennsylvania; Rodney and McKean, of Delaware; Johnson and Goldsborough, 
of Maryland; Lee, Pendleton, and Henr}', of Virginia; Lynch and J. Rutledge, of 
South Carolina Several members probabh' contributed to frame it. A copy exists 
in handwriting resembling that of Sullivan, whose name stands at the head. John 
Adams framed the article relative to the regulation of trade. 



THE REGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 373 

The Association was signed on the 20th of October by 
fifty-two membei's. Their covenant was in these words: 
" We do for ourselves, and the inhabitants of the several 
colonies whom we represent, firmly agree and associate under 
the sacred ties of virtue, lionor, and love of our country." 
The instrument consisted of fourteen articles, forming rules 
for the government of the people in relation to the non- 
importation, non-exportation, and non-consumption of mer- 
chandise from Great Britain. One article provided that the 
parties to the Association would neither import nor purchase 
any slave imported after the first day of December, and 
would wholly discontinue the slave-trade, and refuse to deal 
with those concerned in it. Another stipulated not only 
for non-intercourse with the inhabitants of any colony that 
did not accede to or that might hereafter violate this Asso- 
ciation, but for holding them " as unworthy the rights of 
freemen, and as inimical to the liberties of their country." 
Another article provides that " a committee be chosen in 
every county, city, and town, by those who are qualified to 
vote for the representatives in the legislature, whose business 
it shall be attentively to observe the conduct of all persons 
touching this Association;" and these committees were 
instructed to publish in the " Gazette " the names of vio- 
lators of the Association, to the end that they might be 
" universally condemned as the enemies of American liberty." 
The committees of correspondence were charged to inspect 
the entries at the custom-houses. Thus the Association was 
virtually law, bearing on the individual ; and a penalty was 
affixed to all violations of it. 

The Association has been termed a compact formed for 
the preservation of American rights, — "a league of the 
continent, which first expressed the sovereign will of a free 
nation in America," — and the commencement of the Amer- 
ican Union. ^ It was an embodiment of the sentiment of 

1 " The signature of the Association by the members of congress may be considered 
as the commencement of the American Union." — Hildreth, lii. 46. 

"Among all our original associates in the memorable league of the continent in 



374 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

union, and of the will of the people on the subject of their 
commercial relations, — the first enactment, substantially, 
of a general law by America. For nearly two years the 
instrument was termed " The Association of the United 
Colonies." ^ 

On th'e 11th of October, Richard Henry Lee, William 
Livingston, and John Jay were appointed a committee to 
prepare a memorial to the people of British America, and an 
address to the people of Great Britain. 

The address, prepared by Jay, was reported on the 18th 
of October, when it was debated by paragraphs, amended, 
and recommitted, and three days later (October 21) was 
approved. The British people are addressed as " Friends 
and Fellow-Subjects." The object of the address was to 
show wherein this " unhappy country was not only oppressed, 
but abused and misrepresented," to present the American 
view of the relations between the people of the colonies and 
of England, and to show the necessity of a strict execution 
of the measures recommended by the congress, in order to 
secure "the invaluable rights and liberties derived from the 
laws and constitution of their country." The address has 
this remark : " You have been told that we are seditious, 
impatient of government, and desirous of independency. 
Be assured that these are not facts, but calumnies. Permit 
us to be as free as yourselves, and we shall ever esteem a 
union with you to be our greatest glory and greatest happi- 
ness." It closed by expressing the hope that evil coun- 
sels might be rejected, and thereby might be restored " that 

1774, which first expressed the sovereign will of a free nation in America, he [ \'\ ash- 
ington] was the only one remaining in the general government." — President John 
Adams, answer to the Senate, Dec. 22, 1799. 

The articles of association, with the signatures, were printed on a broadside by 
Edes and Gill, of Boston, who say, " We are induced to publish thus early, purely 
to ease the impatience > f our readers." It is in the Boston papers of Nov. 7, 1774. 

1 "June 7, 1775. Resolved, that Thursday, the 20th of Julv, be observed 
throughout the twelve united colonies." — Journals, i. 67. 

Nov. 8, 1775. Congress instructed a committee to endeavor to engage "the 
inhabitants of the colony of Canada to accede to the Association of the United Colo- 
nies." — Ibid., i. 224. 



THE REGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 375 

harmony, friendship, and fraternal affection, between all the 
inhabitants of His Majesty's kingdoms and territories, so 
ardently wished for by every true and honest American." 

The memorial to the people of the colonies, prepared by 
Richard Henry Lee, was reported on the 19th of October, 
and approved two days later (October 21). It was the 
object of this paper to show that the Declaration of Rights 
was based on the solid foundation of wisdom and justice ; 
for, it was remarked, from counsels thus tempered arose the 
surest hopes of Divine favor, the firmest encouragement to 
the parties engaged, and the strongest recommendation of . 
their cause to mankind. Congress faithfully advised their 
constituents that the aspect of ministerial schemes rendered 
it prudent that they should extend their views to mournful 
events, and be in all respects prepared for every contin- 
gency ; and they say in closing, " Above all things we ear- 
nestly entreat you, with devotion of spirit, penitence of 
heart, and amendment of life, to humble yourselves, and 
implore the power of Almighty God ; and we humbly 
beseech his Divine Goodness to take you into his gracious 
protection." 

On the 21st of October, Thomas Gushing, Richard Henry 
Lee, and John Dickinson were appointed a committee to 
prepare an address to the people of Quebec, and a letter to 
the unrepresented colonies of St. John's, Nova Scotia, Geor- 
gia, and East and West Florida. The letter briefly com- 
mended to these colonies the measures agreed on, and urged 
their adoption " with all the earnestness that a well-directed 
zeal for American liberty can prompt." The address to 
Quebec, drawn up by Dickinson, was reported on the 24th, 
recommitted, and on the 26th again reported, when, after de- 
bate by paragraphs, it was adopted. It was quite elaborate, 
and handled the questions of civil and religious liberty with a 
masterly h9,nd. Congress informed the people of Quebec that 
" the injuries of Boston had roused and associated every col- 
ony from Nova Scotia to Georgia," and that then- " province 



376 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

was the only link wanting to complete the bright and strong 
chain of union." In reference to the objection that might 
arise from joining Catholic and Protestant States, the congress 
remarked, " that the transcendent nature of freedom elevated 
those who unite in her defence above all such low-minded 
infirmities." Quebec was invited to send delegates to the 
next congress, and thus put its fate, " not on the small influ- 
ence of their single province, but on the consolidated power 
of North America." 

On the first day of October, Richard Henry Lee, John 
Adams, Thomas Johnson, Patrick Henry, and Mr. Rutledge 
were appointed a committee to prepare a loyal petition to 
the king, and were unanimously instructed to request, duti- 
fully, his attention to American grievances, entreat his inter- 
position for their removal, and thereby restore the harmony 
" so necessary to the happiness of the British Empire, and 
so ardently desired by all America." Two days after, the 
committee were further instructed to assure His Majesty 
that the colonies would make provision to carry on the 
government, and to grant supplies in case of war ; and a 
third instruction the day following directed them to add 
the assurance, that, " in case the colonies should be restored 
to the state they were in at the close of the war," the jeal- 
ousies created by late Acts of parliament would be removed, 
and commerce again restored. The committee did not report 
until the 21st of October. The draft, prepared by Henry, 
was not satisfactory ; Dickinson was added to the committee, 
and the subject was recommitted. A second draft, by the 
latter, was reported on the 24th, debated the next day by 
paragraphs, amended, and ordered to be engrossed. The 
petition purports to be in behalf of " the inhabitants of 
these colonies," enumerates the grievances composing a 
" destructive system of colony administration," attributes it 
to dangerous and designing men, and avers that the senti- 
ments expressed are " extorted from hearts that much more 
willingly would bleed in His Majesty's service." It claims 



THE REGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 377 

to be addressed to a sovereign who glories iii the name of 
Briton, the loving father of a whole people, who, though 
dwelling in various countries, are connected by the same 
bonds of law, loyalty, faith, and blood. It declared that 
this people did not wish for a diminution of the prerogative 
or solicit the grant of any new right, and would always 
endeavor to maintain their connection with Great Britain: 
but they claimed the right to enjoy in peace, safety, and 
liberty the inheritance left by the forefathers. Two copies 
of this petition were, signed by all the members, and were 
oraered to be sent to the colonial agents in London. ^ 

Congress passed a warm and grateful vote of thanks to 
the noble advocates of civil and religious liberty, in and out 
of parliament, who had generously defended the cause of 
America ; fixed upon the 10th of May following for another 
congress, unless meantime there should be a redress of 
grievances; and invited all the colonies in North America 
to send deputies to it. It dissolved on the 26th of October. 

Its measures were received by the two political parties 
into which the people were divided in a spirit corresponding 
to their principles and aims. 

The Whigs welcomed them witli joy and exultation. " Last 
week," runs a newspaper editorial, "the grand Continental 
Congress ended ; they having, in a manner highly honorable 
to themselves and constituents, and serviceable to their coun- 
try, finished the important business on which they were ap- 
pointed, and met to deliberate and determine for a great and 
increasing nation. The world has hardly ever seen any 
assembly that had matters of greater consequence before 
them, that were chosen in a more honorable manner, were 



1 Ilenrj'- Stevens, in his " Bibliotheca Historica," p. 87, 1870, states that he has 
one of these petitions, c >ntaining the signatures of fifty of the delegates, which was 
carefully preserved by Franklin. One copj'- was presented to the king, and is in the 
State Paper Office. No copy was retained by congress. In January, 1775, a pam- 
phlet was printed in London, it is believed by Franklin, containing the proceedings 
of congress, the title-page of which says: "To which is added (being now first 
printed by authority) an authentic copy of the Petition to the King." 



378 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

better qualified for the high trust reposed in them, executed 
it in a more faithful, judicious, and effectual manner, or were 
more free and unanimous in their conclusions, than this. 
Their proceedings are all drawn with a masterly hand ; the 
expediency of every adopted measure is clearly pointed out ; 
and the whole plan is so well calculated, so tempered with 
goodness and wisdom, with mildness and resolution, so 
guarded by prudence and supported by reason, that in all 
probability it can hardly fail of the desired effect." ^ Thanks 
to the congress re-echoed from the generous breasts of 
grateful thousands. Eighteen Hundred and Seventy-Four, 
it was said, would be a year of triumphant jubilee, when 
medals, pictures, fragments of writings, would revive the 
memory of these proceedings, and when, if any adventi- 
tious circumstances could give precedency, it would be to 
inherit the blood or even to possess the name of a member 
of the glorious assembly .^ 

' Illustrious Congress ! May each name 
Be crowned with immortal fame! " 

The Tories denounced the men and the measures of the 
congress in bitter and unmeasured terms. They charac- 
terized it as composed of the bankrupt and the rich, of 
churchmen and dissenters, of the knavish and the honest, 
chosen by the zealots of every district.^ It was a treasonable 
purpose, projected by Eastern republicans. It was filled with 
factions. An oily demagogue, Samuel Adams, — who ate 
little and slept little, thought much and was indefatigable, — 
and the haughty sultans of the South, juggled the whole con- 
clave. These persons, from the time of the Stamp Act, de- 
signed to throw off all dependence on Great Britain, and 
meant, by every fiction, falsehood, and fraud, to delude the 

1 This is taken from the "Boston Evening Post" of November 14, and was 
copied from a New-York newspaper. 

2 This is from a piece originally printed in the "South-Carolina Gazette," and 
copied into the " Essex Gazette " of Dec. 27, 1774. 

8 George Chalmers, in MS. Letter addressed to Lord Mansfield. 



THE EEGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 379 

people. They were secret and hypocritical, and left no fraud 
unessayed to conceal their intentions.^ The measures sup- 
ported the allegation that the Whigs aimed at rebellion. 
The proof was absolutely positive in the approval of the Suf- 
folk resolves, and in the pledge to support by force the 
inhabitants of Massachusetts in refusing obedience to the 
Regulating Acts. In pointing to these facts, they asked, 
" What think ye of the congress now?" and they reasoned, 
"It is barely possible that the stars in their courses may 
fight in favor of the colonies, that an earthquake may swallow 
up the king's army in Boston, and that every ship of war 
and every transport ordered from England to America may 
be blasted with lightning or overwhelmed in the ocean. 
But if there should be no miraculous interposition of Heaven 
to defeat the natural power of the mother country, should 
we go on to enrage it, it must at last fall upon us with an 
irresistible impetuosity." ^ 

These citations will serve to show the flood of contempo- 
rary eulogy and denunciation poured out on this congress. 
Its action was remarkably faithful to the republican ideas 
universally accepted by the country. The concession of com- 
mercial monopoly to England and the non-importation policy 
have elicited adverse criticism. In considering these meas- 
ures, however, the two cardinal objects of union among the 
colonies and reconciliation with the mother country ought 
to be borne in mind. The concession of the regulation of 
trade, entirely indefensible on principle, evinced at least a 
desire for conciliation. The same remark is applicable to 
the non-importation agreement. Moreover, it Avas a fore- 
gone conclusion. It was simultaneously suggested at the 
South and the North before the congress was called ; it was 
recommended in public meetings and the newspapers ; it 
was approved by the friends of the cause abroad as sure 

1 Gallowaj-, in his Historical Reflections, 1780. 

2 " ■'.Vliat Think Ye of the Congress Now? " A pamphlet printed in New York 
in 1775, by Riviugton. 



380 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

to succeed ; and was the measure, of all others, for which 
the public mind was ready. This weapon, even weakly 
handled, had caused the partial repeal of the Townshend 
Acts. By using it effectively the patriots hoped to obtain 
a change of administration and a redress of grievances. 
The warning by congress to prepare for mournful events 
shows that they considered a resort to force not impossible. 
Still their hope was strong that harmony might be restored ; 
that the non-importation of British goods would create such 
an interest in favor of America as to cause a change. It 
is otherwise impossible to account for the non-importation 
agreement. Had war been deemed inevitable, had the 
aim been independence, every principle of sound policy 
would have demanded that importation should be encour- 
aged, and the largest possible stock of supplies for an army 
obtained. 1 In fact, this was a self-denying ordinance. 
Every refusal of the American to import was at the cost of 
his personal comfort, every refusal to export was a waste 
of his resources for the support of liis family.^ It was a 
peaceable method of redress, and its adoption evinced the 
repugnance to war entertained by the wise and good men 
who gave character to this remarkable assembly. The 
measures, as a whole, fully met the expectations of the 
popular party. They comprised all that a noble patriotism 
could devise to persuade the men in power that war to 
enforce their purposes would be unjustifiable. This was all 
that human wisdom could do. Hence, when the passions 
of the time had passed away, the eulogy of the congress be- 
came so general as to warrant the remark that no public 
body ever gained so full and unanimous a recognition of 
its wisdom and integrity .^ The modern judgment coincides 
with the contem})orary eulogy. 

The papers of this congress, explaining its measures and 
vindicating the American cause, have been uniformly praised 

1 Slarsliall's Life of Washington, i. 184. 

2 Bancroft, vii. 15L 8 Ibid., vii. 190. 



THE REGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 381 

for their soundness, dignity, strength, and purity of style. 
They drew from Lord Chatham the tribute delivered in the 
House of Lords, in which he said : " When your lordships 
look at the papers, when you consider their decency, firm- 
ness, and wisdom, you cannot but respect their cause and 
wish to make it your own. For myself, I must declare and 
avow, that, in all my reading and observation, — and it has 
been my favorite study : I have read Thucydides, and have 
studied and admired the master states of the world, — that for 
solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclu- 
sion, under such a complication of circumstances, no nation 
or body of men can stand in preference to the general con- 
gress at Philadelphia." Daniel Webster advised young 
men who desired to breathe in the spirit of their Revolu- 
tionary ancestors, who desired that every pulsation of their 
hearts and every aspiration of their ambition should be 
American, to master the contents of these immortal papers, 
and become imbued with their sentiments.^ A British writer, 
in an elaborate survey of the nations, pronounces these papers 
" as just as any that were ever written by the pen of man."^ 
This is their enduring quality, — their justice. They, in 
the spirit of American manhood, demanded the right, while 
calmly avowing the determination not to submit to wrong. 

The action of the congress in relation to Massachusetts — 
its approval of the Suffolk resolves, its pledge to support 
the inhabitants, if they were obliged to resist by force the 
execution of the Regulating Act, its recommendation that 
contributions should be continued for the relief of the suf- 
ferers by the Port Act — was in harmony with the sentiments 
of the patriots in all quarters, as conveyed in every news- 
paper that came by the post to Philadelphia. The noble 

1 Address before the New-York Historical Society, p. 43. 

2 Essay on National Character, in two volumes, by Richard Chenevix, London, 
1832, i. 354. At the close of a long chapter on "The causes that develop patriotism 
among the nations" (vol. ii. 527), Chenevix says: "Next to the English in this 
noble feeling stand their descendants in the United States of America. The 8enti< 
ment which guided their Revolution was British. It was proud; it was virtuous." 



382 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

flow of donations into Boston lasted ten months. They 
were raised in the municipalities, and forwarded by persons 
selected to speak in their name, generally committees chosen 
by the qualified voters ; and during these ten months they 
were accompanied by letters from these committees, ad- 
dressed to the patriots of Boston, more precious than the 
gifts themselves. These letters were answered by a com- 
mittee, called the Donation Committee, chosen by the quali- 
fied voters of Boston. This correspondence is voluminous. 
A very few of the letters appeared at the time in the news- 
papers, most of them remaining for nearly a century in 
manuscript. They were consequently independent expres- 
sions of sentiment, one locality not knowing what another 
locality had written. A few sentences will show the temper 
and tone of the whole. ^ 

The New-Hampshire patriots wrote : " We look on the 
cause in which you are engaged as a common cause, and that 
we and our posterity are equally interested with you in the 
event." 2 "We heartily sympathize with you, and earnestly 
pray that as your day is your strength may be ; that you may 
be undaunted, faithful, and wise, and by your steady, undis- 
guised conduct put to silence those who wait for your halt- 
ing." ^ "What you herewith receive cofnes not from the 
opulent, but mostly from the industrious yeomanry. This 
is considered by us not as a gift or an act of charity, but of 
justice, — as a small part of what we are in duty bound to 
communicate to those truly noble and patriotic advocates 

1 Among the archives of the ]\Iassachusetts Historical Society are two Letter- 
Books, one containing copies of letters addressed to the committee appointed by the 
town of Boston to receive and distribute the donations contributed for the sufferers 
by the Port Act; and the other containing the replies to these letters. This corre- 
spondence was printed in the fourth volume of the Fourth Series of the Collections 
of this society, 1858, with notes prepared by the author of this volume. The cor- 
respondence occupies 278 pages. The citations in the text, with a few exceptions, 
are taken from this volume. A few of the letters were printed in the newspapers at 
the time, but nearly the whole remained in manuscript until their publication by the 
Massachusetts Historical Society. 

2 Collections Massachusetts Historical Societj', 4th Series, iv. 76. 
8 Ibid , 200. 



THE REGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 383 

of American freedom wlio are bravely standing in the gap 
between us and slavery, defending the common interests of 
a whole continent, and gloriously struggling for the cause 
of liberty. Upon you the eyes of all America are fixed : we 
can with truth assure you we are engaged to a man in your 
defence. We are ready to communicate of our substance 
largely as your necessities may require ; and with our estates 
to give our lives, and mingle our blood with yours in the 
common sacrifice to liberty. Since we have no asylum on 
earth to which we may fly, before we will submit to wear the 
chains of slavery a profligate and arbitrary ministry are pre- 
paring for us, we are determined upon an emigration through 
the gate of death, in hope of inheriting the fair land of prom- 
ise, and participating with our forefathers in the glorious 
liberty of the sons of God." ^ The donation committee re- 
plied: "We cannot but look on it as from Divine influence 
that the hearts and hands of our brethren are so opened and 
so united in assisting this distressed town ; and we hope and 
believe there are many thanksgivings going up to Him who 
is the author of all good to his creatures, and hope you will 
be rewarded in temporal and spiritual blessings."^ 

The Connecticut patriots wrote : " Our hearts are deeply 
unpressed with the feelings of humanity towards our near 
and dear brethren'of Boston." ^ " A claim to divest us of prop- 
erty, liberty, and life, set up and asserted many years ago, 
and now attempted by the grossest violation of royal faith in 
tearing up by the roots the ancient charter of your province, 
by all the evils of Pandora's box let loose in the new form 
of government imposed upon you, have roused our zeal, and 
determined us to unite with our brethren through the conti- 
nent in a manly struggle for our liberties and rights, which 
must never be parted with. This [the contents of a bill of 
lading] we consider the first payment of a large debt we owe 

1 Collections Massachusetts Historical Society, 4th Series, iv. 146. 

2 Ibid., 202. Among the names of the signers of the letter for this colony were 
John Sullivan and Josiah Bartlett. 

8 Ibid.. 50. 



384 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

you, and we shall be ready to repeat it from time to time, as 
long as your necessity and our ability shall continue." ^ " We 
had a meeting of delegates from the committees of corres- 
pondence in the several towns in the counties of New London 
and Windham. The greatest harmony and unanimity of 
sentiment appeared in all our debates and proceedings. 
The cheek of every member glowed with resentment and 
martial fire. Most assuredly rely upon it that the people in 
all this part of the country are to a man resolutely deter- 
mined to yield you all the assistance in our power, and are 
willing to sacrifice all that is dear and valuable to us rather 
than suffer the patriotic inhabitants of the town of Boston to 
be overwhelmed by the adversaries of American liberty." ^ 
" Our town meeting instructed our representative to raise an 
army in this colony of five or six thousand men immediately, 
and to be kept as an army of observation ; and we had not 
one dissenting voice to the contrary." ^ " Oh ! may Almighty 
God still rouse, and further unite the people of America, as 
one man, to a sense of their liberties, and [to resolve] never 
[to] give them up as long as sun, moon, and stars shall en- 
dure ; and never submit to be slaves, but be willing to sacri- 
fice life and all things to the defence and preservation of 
them."* The donation committee replied: "Your elegant 
and benevolent favor yielded us that support and consolation, 
amid our distresses, which the generous sympathy of assured 
friends can never fail to inspire.^ There was a time when 
some good men among us were insensible of their danger, 
and seemed to prefer obscurity to action ; but the late ma- 
noeuvres of tyranny have roused them from their lethargy, 
and they now pant for the field in which their country is to be 
decided. Nothing has so dampened the spirits of those who 
aspire to be our masters as the accounts we are daily receiv- 
ing of the glorious spirit that inspires the different parts of 

1 Collections Massachusetts Historical Society, 4th Series, iv. 115. 

2 Ibid., 73. 8 Ibid., 252. * Ibid., 151. 
« Hollister's History of Connecticut, ii. 156. 



THE REGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 385 

the continent. Some have believed, or pretended to believe, 
that, if the faction in Boston were quelled, the provinces 
would acquiesce in whatever changes administration were 
pleased to make in the charter and constitution of the Massa- 
chusetts Bay. But now they see that a firm bond is formed in 
America, which the most powerful monarch on earth will not 
easily break. You will be pleased to accept our most hearty 
wishes for a continuance of your friendship ; and gratitude 
and justice oblige us to tell you that the colony of Connecti- 
cut have l)ehaved to us like brothers, and signalized them- 
selves in the cause of American liberty in such a manner as 
will redound to their honor so long as the sun and moon 
endure." ^ 

The Rhode-Island patriots wrote : " We sincerely condole 
the distresses of your town and province, and at the same 
time highly applaud your firmness and prudence. We look 
on your troubles as our own, and shall not fail to exert 
ourselves for your future support, in case you are not soon 
relieved ; being fully convinced that at all events you must 
stand out against the present arbitrary and cruel proceed- 
ings, or all North America must inevitably fall a sacrifice to 
the most oppressive and brutal tyranny that ever disgraced 
the most savage nation upon the face of the earth."- "You 
may depend that all due care will be taken in this town to 
afford you that relief your circumstances may require and 
our abilities will afford, to enable you to hold out in so just a 
cause against the combination of all wicked and mischievous 
beings, from the highest source of evil down to Lord North."" 
The donation committee replied: "We trust our cause which 
indeed is a common cause and of the greatest importance to 
America, is a righteous cause, and that God will maintain 
it."^ "The kindness and generosity that are raised in the 
breasts of our friends, not only in your town and colony, 

1 Massachusetts Historical Collections, 4th Series, iv. 59. Among the names of 
the signers were Israel Putnam and 'William Williams. 

2 Ibid., 158. 8 Ibid., 192. * Ibid., 193. 

25 



386 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

but in all the neighboring governments, surely can be im- 
puted to none but the kind hand of Providence." ^ 

The New- York patriots wrote : " We want language tc 
express our abhorrence of this additional act [the Port Act] 
of tyranny to America: we clearly see that she is to be 
attacked and enslaved by distressing and subduing you."^ 
The donation committee replied: "Assure our benefactors, 
tlie citizens of New York, of the warmest gratitude for such 
generous donations ; while we acknowledge the superin- 
tendency of Divine Providence, we feel our obligations to 
sister colonies: by their liberality they have greatly chagrined 
the common enemies of America, who flattered themselves 
with hopes that before this day they should starve us into a 
compliance with the insolent demands of despotic power ; 
but the people, relieved by your charitable donations, bear 
the indignity with becoming patience and fortitude." ^ 

The New- Jersey patriots wrote : " Suffering in a glorious 
and common cause, sympathy and resentment, with peculiar 
energy, fill the breasts of your anxious countrymen. The 
King of kings and Ruler of princes seems in a remarkable 
manner to be inspiring these colonies with a spirit of union 
to confound the councils of your unrighteous oppressors, 
and with a spirit of humanity and benevolence towards an 
innocent and oppressed people." * " We rely under God upon 
the firmness and resolution of your people, and earnestly 
hope they will never think of receding from the glorious 
ground they stand upon, while the blood of freedom runs in 
their veins, and while a supply can be found from the other 
parts of America for their needy inhabitants." ^ The donation 
committee replied : " As we are not insensible of the noble 
exertions and generous donations of our brethren of the 
Jerseys and throughout the colonics, we patiently bear the 
burdens Providence has been pleased first to lay on us, not 

1 Massachusetts Historical Collections, 4th Series, iv. 159. 2 ibid., 162. 

8 Ibid., 1G5. John Jay was connected with this action. 
* Ibid., 20. 5 Ibid., 110. 



THE REGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 387 

doubting but that all America will with one heart oppose 
every unconstitutional Act of parliament that shall any way 
infringe on our charters and the rights which, as men, God 
and Nature have given us."^ 

The patriots of Pennsylvania wrote: "Tenderly feeling for 
the inexpressibly distressed situation of your town, we wish 
you a happy and speedy issue from the exertions of tyranny 
to the full enjoyment of peace, liberty, and security." ^ The 
Boston committee replied: "Through God's goodness, the 
hearts of our brethren have been opened for our relief. They 
have enabled us to bear up under oppression, to the aston- 
ishment of our enemies ; and we trust we shall be enabled 
still to remain firm, and never desert the glorious cause of 
our country." 3 

The patriots of Delaware wrote: "You maybe assured 
that it is from a people who sincerely sympathize with you in 
your distresses and are anxious for your relief" ;'^ and they 
resolved that it was " the indispensable duty of all the colo- 
nies to join for a removal of grievances, and for re-estab- 
lishing the rights of all America on a solid and permanent 
foundation." ^ The donation committee replied: "It seems 
somewhat difficult for us to determine whether the oppres- 
sion and cruelty of the Boston Port Bill, or the Christian 
sympathy and liberality of our dear friends and countrymen 
(particularly in New Castle), is most affecting. You have 
greatly refreshed our spirits, and strengthened our hands ; 
and we hope we shall not do any thing that shall incur a 
forfeiture of the love, confidence, and affection of our brethren 
in New Castle and elsewhere." ^ 

The patriots of Maryland wrote : " Could we remain a 
moment indifferent to your sufferings, the result of your 
noble and virtuous struggles in defence of American liberties, 



1 ISIassachusetts Historical Collections, 4th Series, iv. 111. 

2 Ibid., 150. 8 Ibid., 157. ■* Ibid., 232. 5 Ibid., 32. 

f> Ibid., 34. Casar Rodney, Thomas McKean, and George Read are among the 
signers of the letters from Delaware. 



388 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

we should unworthily share in those blessings which (under 
God) we owe in great measure to your perseverance and 
zeal in support of our common rights, that they have not ere 
now been wrested from us by the rapacious hand of power." ^ 
" That Heaven may grant you perseverance, and endow you 
with a prudent and becoming fortitude, upon this unhappy, 
ij.larming, and very interesting contest between Britain and 
her colonies, is the ardent hope and desire of, gentlemen, 
your sympathizing friends and fellow-subjects." ^ The dona- 
tion committee replied: "Nothing gives us a more animat- 
ing confidence in the happy event of our present struggle for 
the liberties of America, or offers us greater support under the 
distress we now feel, than the assurances we receive from our 
brethren of their readiness to join with us in every salutary 
measure for preserving the rights of the colonies, and of their 
tender sympathy for us under our sufferings." ^ 

The Yirginia patriots wrote: " We wish you perseverance, 
moderation, firmness, and success in this grand contest, 
which wc view as our own in every respect. Contributions 
for your relief are raising throughout this dominion, and 
will, we hope, be looked upon as a small proof how much 
the good people of this colony are attached to the cause of 
Boston and American liberty."^ "The universal opinion 
entertained here of the real wisdom and firmness with which 
your unjustly oppressed town has defended the common 
rights of British America, as well as its own, cannot fail to 
continue it the assistance and support of this place ; and we 
doubt not but the same just sense of the sufferings, wisdom, 
and spirit of Boston will secure it the united friendship and 
support of all North America." ^ " We assure you that the 
Virginians arc warmly disposed to assist their suffering 

1 Life and Times of Warren, 318. 

2 Massachusetts Historical Collections, 4th Series, iv. 79. 

8 Life and Times of Warren, 318. Charles Carroll, William Paca, and Thomas 
Chase were on the committee in Marj'land. 

* Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, 4th Series, iv. 160. 
6 Ibil., 2.38. 



THE REGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 389 

brethren, and hope for their steady and prudent perseverance 
in the common cause of our country." ^ "In that tract of 
Virginia called the Northern Neck, tliey liave lately raised 
one thousand volunteers, as fine fellows and as good woods- 
men as any on our continent, who have put themselves under 
the command of Colonel George Washington, a brave and 
experienced officer, who, it is said, has undertaken the com- 
mand of them, and they are soon to march for your place." ^ 
The donation committee replied : " Accept our grateful 
acknowledgments for the very generous assistance for the 
inhabitants of Boston." ^ "We have repeatedly had abun- 
dant evidence of the firmness of our brethren of Virginia in 
the American cause, and have^ reason to confide in them, that 
they will struggle hard for the prize now contending for."^ 
" Encouraged by these liberal donations, the inhabitants en- 
dure their sufferings with patience. As men, they feel the 
indignities offered to them ; as citizens, they suppress their 
just resentment : but I trust in God that this much injured 
colony, when urged to it by extreme necessity, will exert 
itself at the utmost hazard in the defence of our common 
rights; while they deprecate tliat necessity, they are active 
in preparing for it."^ "Virginia made an early stand, by 
their ever memorable resolves of 1765, against the efforts 
of a corrupt administration to enslave America, and has 
ever distinguished herself by her exertions in support of our 
common rights. The sister colonies struggled separately ; 
but the minister himself has at length united them, and they 
have lately uttered language that will be heard. It is the 
fate of this town to drink deep of the cup of ministerial 
vengeance ; but while America bears them witness that they 
suffer in her cause, they glory in their suffering." ^ 

The patriots of North Carolina wrote : " A patriotic spirit 

1 Massachusetts Historical Collections, 4th Series, iv. 83. 2 Ibid., 187. 

8 Ibid., 183. 4 Ibid., 188. s Ibid., 211. 

c Ibid., 185. Among the signers to the letters from Virginia were Archibald 
Carey and John Augustine Washington. The last reply cited was signed bj' Samuel 
Adams. 



390 THE RISE OF THE EEPUBLIC. 

possesses eveiy bosom, which all ranks of persons seem 
emulous to express by actions as well as by words. There 
is apparent in almost every individual a proper sense of the 
injury done to the colonics in the tendency of those oppres- 
sive Acts of parliament, and a determined spirit of opposi- 
tion and resentment worthy of a human bosom in the great 
cause of liberty. The enclosed resolves speak the sentiments 
of the inhabitants of Cape Fear, and, we are well assured, of 
this province in general." ^ " They have hopes, that, when 
the united determinations of the congress reach the royal ear, 
they will have redress from the cruel, unjust, and oppressive 
Acts of the British parliament." ^ The Boston committee 
replied : " We thank you for the resolves of your provincial 
meeting of deputies. We esteem them as manly, spirited, 
and noble, — worthy of our patriotic brethren of North Caro- 
lina. God grant that our endeavors to restore and preserve 
the rights of our dear America may be attended with his 
fa vol' and blessing ! " ^ 

The patriots of South Carolina said : " Be comforted, ye 
oppressed Bostonians ! and exult, ye Northern votaries of 
liberty ! that the sacred rays of freedom, which used to beam 
from you on us, are now reverberated with double efficacy 
back upon yourselves, from your weaker sister, Carolina, 
who stands foremost in her resolution to sacrifice her all in 
your defence."* 

The patriots of Georgia wrote : " Many among us sincerely 
espouse the great cause contended for by you, and ardently 
wish that the noble stand you have made in defence of those 
rights to which as men and as British subjects we are enti- 
tled may be crowned with success. The manly conduct of 
the brave people of Boston and of Massachusetts Bay, to 
preserve their liberty, deserves not only the applause and 
thanks of all America, but also the imitation of all man 
kind." 5 

1 Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, 4th Series, iv. 23. 

2 Ibid., 85. 3 Ibid., 88. 4 Ibid., 179. 5 ibid , 274. 



THE REGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 391 

This record forms a rare chapter of genuine history. It 
was written when the people who were making this history 
were inspired by the consciousness of being engaged in 
defending a just cause. A high authority remarks, that 
•' never did a more sincere and perfect conviction that every 
principle of right was arranged with them animate the 
iiuman bosom, than was now felt by the great body of 
Americans;"^ and another, that "the animation of the 
times raised the actors in these scenes above themselves, 
and excited them to deeds of self-denial which the interested 
prudence of calmer seasons can scarcely credit." ^ They 
were uniting in the bonds of law, and the record is as a 
window admitting a view of their inner life, — revealing 
their thought, their hope, their faith, their passion, their 
love; showing how they felt as countrymen, and what they 
regarded as their country. Nothing could be more generous 
than the expressions of admiration, or more tender than the 
offerings of sympathy, or more free from calculation than 
the enthusiasm for principle, or more solemn than the 
pledge of fortune and life, or more reverent than the trust 
in Providence. The noble record portrays the brotherhood 
that constituted the real union of the colonies. It admits 
posterity into the heart of the^Revolution. It is a Christian 
prologue grandly spoken on the entrance of the United 
Colonies into the family of nations. 

The public eye was now more than ever fixed on Massa- 
chusetts. A community of nearly four hundred thousand 
persons, by the nullification of the Acts altering its govern- 
ment, were without courts of law, or other than municipal 
authority. The pressure became strong to proceed as an 
independent people and form a new government. The 
great majority, however, wisely determined to act in accord- 
ance Avith the advice of the general congress. This body 
counselled the inhabitants to keep on the defensive, to resist 

1 Marshall's Life of Washington, ii. 184. 

* Ramsay's History of the American Revolution, i. 146. 



892 THE EISE OF THE EEPUBLIC. 

with arms only when arms should be used to execute the 
new Acts. They stopped in civil affairs where this advice, 
enforced by letters in the same tone, implied that they 
ought to stop. Immediately on receiving the resolve of 
congress of the 8th of October, pledging the continent to 
support the people of Massachusetts in such resistance, they 
commenced the preparation of arming, in the conviction 
that resistance " was the Christian and social duty of each 
individual." 

Governor Gage issued a precept for the choice of repre- 
sentatives to the General Court, and the towns elected them ; 
but before the time for their meeting the Governor prorogued 
them. They met, however, at Salem, where they were sum- 
moned to meet, and resolved themselves into a provincial 
congress, chose John Hancock President, and Benjamin 
Lincoln Secretary, and then adjourned to Concord. The 
decisive business of this body may be said to have com- 
menced with the creation (October 27) of " The Committee 
of Safety." On the next day this committee were directed 
"to take care of and lodge in some safe place in the country 
warlike stores." The congress dissolved on the 10th of 
December. A second congress, chosen by those who elected 
the representatives, met at Oambridge on the 1st of Feb- 
ruary ; and this body was in existence until the spring. 
These congresses chose a committee of supplies, provided 
for the organization of the militia, one quarter of whom 
were to meet at a moment's warning, and appointed general 
officers to command the militia. The committee of safety 
were empowered to summon this force to the field whenever 
General Gage should attempt to execute the Regulating 
Acts. This committee, on which were Hancock, Warren, 
and Samuel Adams, was virtually a directory appointed to 
see to the defence of the Commonwealth. 

Such was the local public authority recognized in this 
crisis. In obedience to its call, the towns, during the autumn 
and winter of 1774 and 1775, were fairly alive with military 



THE EEGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 393 

preparations. In many of them the minute-men signed an 
agreement pledging themselves to take the field at a minute's 
warning. On the days of drill the citizen soldiers some- 
times went from the parade-ground to the church, where they 
listened to exhortation and prayer. The scene engrossed 
all minds, moved all hearts ; ordinary business gave way to 
the demands of the hour. The newspapers are laden with 
political articles relating to the issue. One of the ablest of 
the Tory party, Daniel Leonard, defended that side of the 
question, under the signature of " Massachusettensis," and 
was answered by John Adams, under the signature of 
" Novanglus ; " and these uncommonly able productions pre- 
sent accurate views of the argument as the Revolution 
reached the stage of physical force. In some instances the 
cause was dishonored by personal violence, but in the main 
was kept remarkably true to social order. " You," say the 
provincial congress, " are placed by Providence in the post 
of honor, because it is the post of danger. And while 
struggling for the noblest objects, — the liberties of your 
country, the happiness of posterity, and the rights of human 
nature, — the eyes not only of North America and the whole 
British Empire, but of all Europe, are upon you. Let us be, 
therefore, altogether solicitous that no disorderly behavior, 
nothing unbecoming our characters as Americans, as citi- 
zens and Christians, be justly chargeable to us."^ 

It was said, during the session of the general congress, 
that there was a wide difference in spirit between New 
England and the other colonies.^ The letters, however, 

1 The Address of the Provincial Congress, Dec. 10, 1774, to the Freeholders and 
other Inhabitants of JIassachusctts, in the newspapers. 

2 Tlie " Massachusetts Gazette " of Oct. 21, 1774, has an elaborate paper, "From 
the 'New-Yorli Gazette ' of October 10, to the Inhabitants of North America," 
signed "A New-York Freeholder," which has the following: — 

" There is a wide difference between the state of New England and that of the other 
colonies: the same spirit by no means seems to actuate their conduct. In the colonies 
south of New England, there is no training up to military discipline, nor mustering 
forces with the avowed <lesign to resist the king's troops ; there is no attempt by the 
populace to buy up arms or ammunition; no violence or persecution is offered to 
officers of government, or to such as do not choose to join in popular tumults; few or 



394 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

flowing into Boston manifested that one feeling animated 
them all, — that they were substantially members of one 
body, and that with the one that was suffering all suffered. 
The warning of the congress to be prepared for mournful 
events, the increase from time to time of the army under 
General Gage, and the determination to coerce Massachu- 
setts into subjection to arbitrary power, produced a profound 
impression ; and the colonies south of New England began 
to arm. It was announced in the public prints that Virginia 
was organizing her militia. Washington was now prompt 
to volunteer as a soldier. His name went through the 
country as the chairman of the meeting held in his county 
(Feb. 2, 1775) to enroll the militia and levy a tax to pay 
for their service.^ Maryland and Pennsylvania also were 
preparing for self-defence. Indeed, there was in the ranks 
of the popular party the same determination. The scene 
was delineated by General Charles Lee, then recently from 
England. " I have now run through the whole of the colo- 
nies from North to South. I have conversed with every 
order of men, from the first-estated gentleman to the poorest 
planters, and cannot express my astonishment at the unani- 
mous, ardent spirit reigning through the whole. They are 
determined to sacrifice every thing — their property, their 
wives, children, and blood — rather than cede a tittle of 
what they conceive to be their rights. The tyranny over 



no pulpitB resound or are in a foam with politics. You may travel from the southern 
limit of Connecticut, as far as Florida, without meeting with any of these untoward 
symptoms, which are certainly to be found in New England. The other colonies pro- 
cee<l no further than to assert with proper firmness and spirit what they conceive to 
be their rights." 

1 The "Essex Gazette" of March 7, 1775, has the resolves of the county of 
Fairfax, Va., " Col. George Washington " in the chair, voting a tax for the purchase 
of arms, &c., and the enrolment of the inhabitants from sixteen to sixty years of age, 
and the practice of the military exercise, "as recommended by the provincial congress 
of the Massachusetts Bay on the 29th of October last." 

The officers of the Virginia Independent Companies, in April, 1775, countersigned 
a spirited declaration of a pledge to maintain and defend " the law, the liberty, aud 
rights of this or any sister colony," with the motto, "God save the liberties of 
America." — Kives's Life of Madison, i. 92. 



THE EEGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 395 

Boston, indeed, seems to be resented by the other colonies 
in a greater degree than by the Bostonians themselves." 

In the midst of these scenes the popular party ratified the 
Association, provided the machinery for its execution, and 
gave it the force of law. In some cases, as in Connecticut, 
the general assembly was the first to approve of the pro- 
ceedings of congress, and directed the towns to observe its 
recommendations. In other cases, as in Virginia, the free- 
holders met in the counties, voted that the Association 
should be their sole rule of conduct, pledged themselves, 
" by the sacred ties of honor, virtue, and love of country," 
to execute it, and thanked the delegates for their faithful- 
ness, — thus acting directly under the advice of congress. 
Ail but two of the colonies ratified the Association: New 
York, in whose assembly a motion of approval was voted 
down ; and Georgia, in which the patriots were not strong 
enough to carry it in the commons. The approval by the 
municipalities, in meetings of the qualified voters, called in 
the usual form, was very general. One meeting voted that 
it expected to see every city, town, and county accept the 
Association ; another expressed satisfaction that every town, 
city, and county throughout America had accepted it, — and 
this included the municipalities in Georgia and New York. 
But the partial ratification of these two colonies was not 
allowed to pass in silence. The general committee of South 
Carolina formally presented Georgia as inimical to the 
liberty of America ; and when its patriots pleaded that St. 
John's Parish and others had accepted the Association, the 
general committee would only refer the matter to the con- 
gress. The Virginia convention instructed its committee 
of correspondence to ascertain authentically whether the 
New-York assembly " had deserted the union," and report 
at the next convention. The Tories prepared a counter 
Association, designed to defeat the Association of the gen- 
eral congress ; but the project was soon abandoned. The 
spirit exhibited in the municipalities was the same, whether 



396 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

they had grown up under charter, proprietary, or royal forms 
of government, and whether the individual or denominational 
sympathies were Congregational, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, 
or Quaker : underlying all were Christian brotherhood, sym- 
pathy in fundamental political ideas, and enthusiasm for the 
rights of human nature. These sentiments could not be 
bound by provincial lines. They expressed the yearning for 
American unity, — and this for the sake of principles as wide 
in their application as the common humanity.^ 

1 In New Hampshire, a convention of a hundred and forty-four deputies from 
the towns met at Exeter, January 25, 1775, and heartily approved of "the proceed- 
ings of the late gi'and continental congress." In a spirited address they recom- 
mended the inhabitants " strictly to adhere to the Association." 

In Massachusetts, the provincial congress, December 5, in an elaborate resolve, 
approved the proceedings of the general congress, on the report of a committee, 
ordei'ed to be attested by the secretary and sent to all the towns and districts. The 
report and resolve are in the "Massachusetts Gazette," December 16. In some of 
the counties the inhabitants signed a covenant to execute the Association. 

In Connecticut, the delegates reported to the assembly the proceedings of the 
congress, which were unanimously approved. The assembh' sent orders to the 
towns for the strict execution of the Association. — Massachusetts Gazette, November 
14. Hollister (ii. 159) says nearly all the towns complied with the order. 

In Rhode Island, a special meeting of the assembly was called to receive the report 
of the delegates. The proceedings of congress were approved December 8. The 
vote is in the "Massachusetts Gazette," December 22. 

In New Jersey, Elizabeth Town, December 1, and Newark, December 7, unani- 
mously approved the Association; Woodbridge, January 7, 1775, instructed its 
committee on the subject "in every respect [to] follow the directions of the Associa- 
tion as much as if it was a law of this province; " Middlesex Countj', January 16, 
pledged itself to enforce it "by the ties of virtue, honor, and the loveof ourcountrj'." 
On the 24th of February the delegates from this colony to the congress laid before 
the assembly the proceedings of that body, when the house unanimouslj' voted to 
approve of them, "such as are of the people called Quakers excepting onl^^ to such 
parts as may have a tendency to force." 

In Pennsylvania, the assembly, December 10, appi'oved the proceedings, and most 
seriously recommended the good people to observe them inviolate. (Force's Archives, 
i. 102-3.) The City and Liberties, November 7, had chosen by ballot an inspection 
committee, who in a letter say they met with no impediments in executing the decrees 
of congress. (Force, i. 1243.) Reading chose its committee December 5; Chester 
County, December 20. A convention of delegates, among them Dickinson, Read, 
Wilson, Clymer, and MifHin, met January 23, 1775, in Philadelphia, "most heartily 
approved of the measures of congress, and resolved to faithfuUv endeavor to carry 
into execution the Association ; if this did not effect a redress of grievances, but, 
instead, if force should be used to effect submission, then to ri'sist such force, and 
at every hazard to defend the rights and liberties of America." — Pennsylvania 
Evening Post, Jan. 31, 1775. 

In Delaware, the counties first (New Castle, December 5), and then, March 15, 



THE EEGULATINa ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 397 

The simple narrative of the progress of events shows how 
a noble spirit spread from breast to breast, and from colony 
to colony, beyond the power of human calculation. The 

1775, the assembly, voted to approve "of the proceedings of the late congress." The 
votes are hi the " Pennsylvania Evening Post " of March 21, 1775. 

In Maryland, a provincial meeting of deputies fi-om the several counties met at 
Annapolis, November 21, unanimously approved the proceedings, and voted that 
every person ought inviolably to adhere to the Association. The counties had begun 
, to choose committees (Anne Arundel, November 9; Baltunore, November- 12; Cal- 
vert, November 16; Frederick, November 18) "to carry into execution the Associa- 
tion agreed on by the American Continental Congress." A convention representing 
all the counties met by adjournment, December 8, and in addition pledged Maryland 
to support Massachusetts in resisting by force. See on this a letter of John Adams. 
Jan. 3, 1775 (Works, ix. .35.3). 

In Virginia, the freeholders began in November to meet in their several counties, 
agreeing to stand by the Association, and appointing committees to carry it out; 
and these meetings continued through the winter. Northampton County, after 
choosing "a committee to see the Association faithfully executed," as "directed by 
the late continental congress," voted that it " should be considered as the sole rule 
of the committee's conduct," &c. The freeholders of James City met November 25, 
when the Association was read and cordially acceded to, and the meeting bound 
themselves "by the sacred ties of virtue" inviolably to keep the same, chose a 
committee to secure a due observance of it, and voted that the resolutions of the 
general congress "ought to be considered by the committee and the whole country 
as the sole rule of their conduct in all matters respecting their present political en- 
gagements." The address of Fincastle County, January 20, to the Virginia dele- 
gates, is a noble production, vowing allegiance to the la^vful sovereign, but faithful 
" to the liberty with which God, nature, and the rights of humanity had vested 
them." On the 20th of March, "a convention of delegates for the counties and 
corporations" of the colony was held at Richmond, when one hundred and eighteen 
members were present, comprising nearly all the popular leaders of the colony, by 
whom it was voted unanimously "that this convention doth entirely and cordially 
approve of the proceedings of the American Continental Congress." The proceedings 
were widely circulated in the newspapers. 

North Carolina, in a provincial convention of August, 1774, agreed, in advance, 
to abide by the decisions of the General Congress and to cut off dealings with all 
towns or individuals who refused or neglected to do this. Its assembly, April 7, 
1775, adopted a resolve highly approving of the pi-oceedings of the Continental Con- 
gress, pledging adherence to its resolutions and efforts to have every individual in 
the colony observe them. For this act Governor Martin, April 8, dissolved the 
assembly. A provincial convention of delegates had been convened at the same 
time and place. Colonel Casewell presented a copy of the Association of October 
20, which was read, when the convention passed a resolve (April 5) ' highly approv- 
mg of it, and recommended their constituents to adhere firmly to the same." Then 
all the members but one subscribed their names to this resolve. The proceedings of 
both bodies are in Force's Archives, 4th Series, ii. 266. 

In South Carolina, a provincial congress, consisting of " deputies from every 
parish and district" in the colony, with Charles Pinckney as the president, assem- 
bled .m the 7th of January, and voted " that this congress do approve the American 



398 THE EISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

time having come for the people to pass from the control of 
the mother country, the Governor of the Universe, b}^ a 
secret influence on their minds, disposed them to union,^ and 
to give to this union the strength of law. Hence the Twelve 
United Colonies. Hence, while the old forms of government 
remained, the Association virtually constituted a new and 
independent authority, ^ — a government through congresses 
and committees. Hence the manifestation, in the pledge to ^ 
support Massachusetts, of a readiness to use the united 
strength for the common defence. Hence the stern deter- 
mination that the recommendations of the general congress 

Association," and that committees should be appointed in each parish to carry it 
out. A letter dated Charleston, March 1, says: "In this colony the Association 
takes place as effectually as law itself." The "Boston Gazette" of March 27 has 
the proceedings of "the General Committee," declaring non-intercoui-se with Geor- 
gia, and pronouncing its people inimical to the liberties of their country, because 
it had not acceded to "the continental Association." The proceedings were sent 
to the Northern colonies. 

The patriots of Georgia had a hard struggle. The provincial congress assembled 
at Savannah on the 18th of March, and forty-five of the deputies entered into an 
association in behalf of the American cause; but the colony, as a unit, did not adopt 
the continental Association until a later period. 

In New York, though the assembly refused to approve the proceedings of con- 
gress, yet the committee of correspondence (November 7) and many of the counties 
chose inspection committees. The committee of con'cspondence of Jamaica, L.I., in 
a letter addressed to the New- York delegates, expressed the hope that the measures 
of congress might be adopted "by every city, town, and county in the British 
colonies." 

The "Edinburgh Advertiser" of October 11, 1774, says: — 

"Private letters inform us that the late measures of government towards the 
Massachusetts province have united all America beyond what could have been imag- 
ined ; and it is thought that whatever measures arc recommended by the congress, 
they will bo almost unanimously pursued in such a manner as will surprise the world, 
reflect lasting honor on America, and prove that its inhabitants are worthy of their 
claim of being descended from British ancestors." 

The "Pennsylvania Evening Post " or January 24, 1775, has the followiDg: — 

" All the provincial assemblies that have met since the Continental Congress have 
fully approved and adopted the measures agreed upon and recommended by that 
august body, and have taken all proper measures to carry the whole into full execu- 
tion. . . . Where the assemblies have not yet met, they are all with vigor and una- 
nimity exerting themselves in the same important and glorious cause, so that it is 
thought there never was framed a set of human laws that were more strictly and 
religiously observed than these will be." 

1 Ramsay's History of American Revolution, i. 145. * Ibid., 144. 



THE EEGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 399 

sliould have the force of laws. This result was profounder 
than any ever attained by the States of Greece. The Am- 
phictyons, often called to view in those times in the public 
prints, never reached the dignity of a federal council habitu- 
ally directing and habitually obeyed. "Had there existed," 
Grote forcibly remarks, " any such commune concilium of 
tolerable wisdom and patriotism, and had the tendencies 
of the Hellenic mind been capable of. adapting themselves 
to it, the whole course of later Grecian history would prob- 
ably have been altered ; the Macedonian kings would have 
remained only as respectable neighbors, borrowing civiliza- 
tion from Greece, and expending their military energies 
upon Thracians and Illyrians, while united Hellas might 
even have maintained her own territory against the conquer- 
ing legions of Rome."^ The Americans, through the mod- 
ern instrumentality of representation, inaugurated a general 
council ; and they now began to look to it as their guide, 
and to consider it a necessity that its decisions concerning 
the common welfare should be respected as laws. It is 
scarcely possible to overrate the importance of this result. 
It is safe to say that it influenced the whole future course of 
American history. 

Indeed, union had not only passed from sentiment into 
law, but had become a power. The Loyalists could not see 
this. The chain that appeared to the Whigs bright and 
golden, appeared to the Tories but a rope of sand. Their type 
may be studied in Galloway, their keenest champion. He 
could see only the old diversity ruling as the law of society, 
and held that it was impossible for the colonies to unite 
"either to avoid any general mischief or to promote any 
general good." Having probably in mind the common 
language of the public prints, most likely the every-day 
talk, as to the vital need of an American Constitution, he 
said in congress : " I know of no American Constitution : a 

1 Grote's Histoiy of Greece, ii. 35. 



400 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Virginia Constitution -we have, a Pennsylvania Constitution 
we have ; we are totally independent of each other." ^ 
Patrick Henry was a type of the American who stood on 
the top of the mountain, and whose vision was illumined 
by the glory of a common country. When the old diver- 
sity was adjusting itself to the new union, he exclaimed 
in congress : " The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsyl- 
vanians, New-Yorkers, and New-En glanders are no more, 
I am not a Virginian, but an American." ^ Glorious man ! 
His instincts were ever true to his country, if his judgment 
— as in opposing the adoption of the Federal Constitution — 
was sometimes wrong. It is but just to add, that no one of 
the great men of those times was more opposed to the fatal 
unity that runs into centralization. 

The popular leaders estimated justly the importance of 
the Union, and of the stand which the Union had taken. 
Samuel Adams wished the ministers would consider the very 
momentous truth, that a regular attempt to subdue a colony 
" would open a quarrel which would never be closed until 
that what [independence] some of them affect to apprehend, 
and we sincerely deprecate, would take effect." ^ Richard 
Stockton, who signed the Declaration, wrote : " There is not 
the least doubt that, if the British government should attempt 
to carry its Acts into execution by force, but that the associ- 
ated colonies would repel force by force." ^ John Dickinson 
wrote : " The first act of violence on the part of the admin- 
istration in America will put its whole continent in arms from 
Nova Scotia to Georgia." Josiah Quincy, Jr., in London, 

1 John Adams's Works, ii. 390. 

2 John Adams's Works, ii. 307. Mr. Innis, in the Virginia convention of 1787, 
remarked of the feeling in 1775: "It was not a Virginian, Carolinian, or Pennsyl- 
vanian, but the glorious name of an American that extended from one end ot 
the continent to the other that was then beloved and confided in." — Elliot's Debates, 
iii. 633, ed. 18C6. 

8 Letter to Arthur Lee, Feb. 14, 1775. A part of this letter is in Wells's " Life of 
Adams," ii. 274. 

4 An Expedient for the Settlement of American Disputes, Dec. 12, 1774. His- 
torical Magazine, November, 1868, p. 228. 



THE REGULATING ACT AND ASSOCIATION. 401 

wrote : " I look to my countrymen with the feelings of one who 
verily believes they must yet seal their faith and constancy 
to their liberties with blood." 

The prophecies of the future of America by Herbert, 
Cowley, and Berkeley, cited in this narrative, were circulated 
in the newspapers : which contained one by the Earl of 
Orrery, — the old thought that " the ball of empire might roll 
westward and stop in America; a world unknown when 
Rome was in its meridian splendor, — a world that might 
save the tears of some future Alexander." ^ An American 
also cast the horoscope : " All power of government is 
derived from God through the instrumentality of kings or 
the people. Has the impartial Governor of the Universe 
communicated his attributes of power, wisdom, justice, and 
mercy to kings only, and denied the least portion of them 
to every other class of mankind ? . . . The American con- 
gress derives all its power, wisdom, and justice, not from 
scrawls of parchment signed by kings, but from the people. 
A more august and equitable legislative body never existed 
in any quarter of the globe. It is founded on the principles 
of the most perfect liberty. A freeman, in honoring and 
obeying the congress, honors and obeys himself. . . . The least 
deviation from the resolves of the congress will be treason. 
It will be treason against the present inhabitants of the 
colonies, against the millions of unborn generations who 
are to exist hereafter in America, against the only liberty 
and happiness which remain to mankind. . . . We are now 
laying the foundation of an American constitution. Let us 
therefore hold up every thing we do to the eye of posterity. 
They will probably measure their liberties and happiness by 
the most careless of our footsteps. Let no unhallowed hand 
touch the precious seed of liberty. . . . Wise and good men 
in Britain have lifted up the curtain of futurity in America. 
Let us not be afraid to look through it. Ye intuitive spirits 
who see through the connection of cause and effect, ye holy 

1 Essex Gazette, March 1, 1774. 
26 



402 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

spirits who have been accustomed to trace the operations of 
Divine Providence, ye decisive spirits who resolve and exe- 
cute at once, — ye know what I mean. ' In oeternitatem 
•pingo^ said a poet. Let us neither think, write, speak, nor act, 
without keeping our eyes fixed upon the period which shall 
dissolve our connection with Great Britain. The deliverance 
of the present ministry may precipitate it, but the ordinary 
course of human tilings must accomplish it. Britain may 
relax from her present arbitrary measures ; but political 
necessity, not justice, must hereafter be the measure of her 
actions. Freemen cannot bear a middle state between free- 
dom and slavery. It is essential to the happiness of liberty 
that it should be secure and perpetual." ^ 

1 Essex Gazette, Dec. 20, 1774. A piece entitled Political Obsen'ations, -with- 
out order, addressed to the people of America, copied from the "Pennsylvania 
Packet." John Adams, in a letter to a member of congress in Philadelphia, dated 
Dec. 12, 1774 (Works, ix. 349), comments on this piece. The "Massachusetts 
Gazette" of Jan. 28, 1773, has the following prediction, copied from a London 
paper: — 

" The celebrated Choiseul, late prime mhiister of France, being a few weelcs ago 
asljed why he ceded so amazing a tract of country as all Canada to Great Britain by 
the last peace, replied: 'I ceded it on purpose to destroy the English nation. They 
were fond of American dominion, and I resolved they should have enough; for I 
have given them not only a constant drain for their most valuable inhabitants, but a 
formidable rival, which in less than a century will find full employment for the coun- 
cils of that turbulent people.' Choiseul's words arc already prophetic. Our own 
ministers begin to discover that America is a very problematic benefit to England, 
and Lord Hillsborough actually resigned because we were opening on the Ohio fresh 
graves for the inhabitants of the kingdom." 



CHAPTER X. 

When the Popttlar Leaders recognized the Fact of Revolu- 
tion AND BEGAN TO AIM AT INDEPENDENCE, AND HOW THEY MET 

THE Question of Sovereignty. 

1775. — January to November. 

As tlie United Colonies were organizing to support Massa- 
chusetts in resisting the acts altering its charter, the admin- 
istration was preparing to carry them into effect, when a 
detachment of the king's troops, sent out from Boston into 
the country to destroy a collection of military stores, fired 
on the provincial militia at Lexington and Concord, killing 
some and wounding others. This occurrence brought on 
hostilities, changing the situation from commercial war to 
armed resistance ; whereupon the king, by proclamation, 
declared divers subjects in the colonies in a state of rebel- 
lion. The popular leaders then recognized the fact of 
revolution, resolved to aim at independence, and began to 
deal with the question of sovereignty by advising the colo- 
nies to abrogate authority under the crown, and form local 
governments. 

The United Colonies contained a population, according to 
the estimate of Congress, of three millions ; other estimates 
placed it lower.^ Pioneers had penetrated the forests west 
of the Allcghanies, and begun settlements that grew into great 
States ; but the body of the people lived on the belt of land 
stretching from the Atlantic coast to the Gulf of Mexico. 
The relative increase in twenty years, or since 1754, was as 

1 The estimates of the population of the colonies in 1774 differ widely. One 
estimate is 2,141,307; another, 2,590,000; another, 2,810,000; that of Congress, 



404 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

follows : New England had risen from 436,000 to 690,000 ; 
the Middle Colonies from 528,000 to 870,000 ; the Southern 
from 461,000 to 1,030,000. 

This people — a new race, moulding their institutions 
under Christian influences ^ — were fixed in the traits that 
characterize Americans. Without the infection of wild 
political or social theories, they were animated by a love of 
liberty and a spirit of personal independence unknown to 
the great body of the people of Europe, while at the same 
time recognizing the law which united the individual to the 
family and to the society in which he is appointed to live, 
to the municipality and the commonwealth which gave him 
protection, and to a great nation which met and satisfied 
the natural sentiment of country.^ 

The colonies had reached their development as thirteen 
distinct communities, each of which, though claiming a com- 
mon property in certain fundamental ideas, had modes of life, 
likes and dislikes, aims and ambitions, and an internal polity 

3,026,678. Tucker, in his "History of the United States" (i. 96), makes the follow- 
ing apportionment, which indicates the relative importance of the colonies: — 

Massachusetts 360,000 

New Hampshire 80,000 

Connecticut 200.000 

Rhode Island 50,000 

New York 180,000 

New Jersey 130,000 

Pennsylvania 300,000 

Delaware 40,000 

Maryland 220,000 

Virginia 560,000 

North Carolina 260.000 

South Carolina 180,000 

Georgia 30,000 

2,590,000 

1 See above, p. 107. 

2 Winterbottom, in his " View of the United States " (i. 409, Am. ed. 179G),say.s: 
" The political creed of an American colonist was short, but substantial. He believed 
that God made all mankind originally equal; that he endowed them with the rights 
of life, propert}', and as much liberty as was consistent with the rights of others; 
that he had bestowed on his vast family of the human race the earth for their sup- 
port; and that all government was a political institution between men naturally 
equal, not for the aggrandizement of one or a few, but for the general happiness of 
the whole community " 



THE king's proclamation AND REVOLUTION. 405 

in many respects local and peculiar. They had attained the 
condition, in Milton's words, long wished for and spoken of, 
but never yet obtained, in whicli the people had justice in their 
own hands, and law executed fully and finally in counties 
and precincts.^ They were not like the United Provinces of 
Holland, — many sovereignties united in one commonwealth, 
— but, unlike any previous political organization, peoples 
consolidated into commonwealths, all having separate gov- 
errments with distinct jurisdictions, and all " under one 
united and intrusted sovereignty," ^ allegiance to which they 
were proud to acknowledge. They could present in science 
a Franklin, and in metaphysics an Edwards, — great in 
these provinces, — but little else of enduring fame in art, 
philosophy, or literature. They, however, had made a great 
history. Tliey had taken up the principles of the revolution 
of 1640, which England had cast down, and showed their 
working in political institutions, — how they tended to 
make a people "virtuous, noble, and high-spirited." When 
called upon to maintain these institutions, they evinced a 
culture and intelligence that surprised the civilized world. 
Edmund Burke, in the House of Commons, spoke of them 
in the following terms : " Nothing in the history of man- 
kind is like their progress. For my part, I never cast an 
eye on their flourishing commerce and their cultivated and 
commodious life, but they seem to me rather ancient 
nations, grown to perfection through a long series of for- 
tunate events and a train of successful industry accumulating 
wealth in many centuries, than the colonies of yesterday." ^ 
These flourishing colonies were in the relation of union. 
This was not a factitious result, but a providential issue, 
having as its inner springs fidelity to similar political ideas, 
a feeling of brotherhood, common peril, and a common object. 
This union — before the Constitution, before the Confedera- 

1 A Free Commonwealth, Prose Works, Bohn's ed., ii. 135. 

2 Milton, Ibid., ii. 136. 

3 Speech on American Taxation, April 19, 1774. Parliamentary' Histoiy, xvii. 
1236. 



406 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

tion, before the Declaration — was familiar in the speech of 
Americans, and instinctively clung to as their rock of sal- 
vation.^ The spirit animating the people appeared in the 
interchange of sentiment cited in the preceding chapter, in 
which the terms "country," "countrymen," "common- 
wealth," "nation," and "America" were used to denote a 
certain collective life. These terms were the signs of a fur- 
ther development, — namely, of the sentiment of nation- 
ality. The people of these dependent colonies in union 
were advancing to the condition of people of independent 
States in union ; and they were growing into the relations 
with each other which such a development required ; or 
were determining what powers they would exercise through 
the existing unit of the colony by its local government, and 
what through a general government for the new unit of the 
United Colonies or States. When the public mind attained 
convictions on vital points, it became the province of states- 
men to devise a written Constitution to meet the require- 
ments of the unwritten law. The early formative pro- 
cess was rather institutional than conventional, — rather 
the instinctive judgment than the formal compact. The 
grand result was the oneness, sovereignty, and nationality 
of the people, within prescribed limits, proudly upheld by all 
parties in the revolutionary age.^ 

The people waited, in keen anxiety, to learn the effect 
produced in England by the fact of union, and the measures 
of the congress. In their action, they pleaded with the 
sovereign, not that they had attained majority, and therefore 
were entitled to separation and to national power, but that 

1 "If I am called an enthusiast for it, I cannot help thinking that this union 
among tlie colonies and warmth of aifection can be attiibuted to nothing less than 
the agency of the Supreme Being." — Samuel Adams, March 12, 1775. James 
Bowdoin, Sept 6. 1774, wrote to Franklin of the penal measures: "The spirit those 
Acts have raised throughout the colonies is surprising. It was not propagated from 
colony to colony, but burst forth in all of them spontaneously as soon as the Acts 
were known; and there is reason to hope that it will be productive of a union that 
will work out the salvation of the whole." — Sparks's Franklin, viii. 127. 

2 W^ritings of James Madison, iv. 320. 



THE king's proclamation AND REVOLUTION. 407 

the proud development portitiyed by Burke was the fruit 
of the exercise of English liberties according to American 
interpretation and application, and that their progress in the 
future depended on their power of resistance to the ideas and 
practices which a Tory administration was trying to force 
upon them at the point of the bayonet. These Tory ideas 
were impersonated in the king. He continued, to a great 
degree, to shape the measures of the Cabinet. However his 
recently published correspondence may affect our estimate 
of his culture and judgment, it cannot but increase respect 
for his honesty and fidelity to his convictions of duty. He 
now wrote : " I entirely place my security in the protection 
of the Divine Disposer of all things, and shall never look to 
the right or left, but steadily pursue the track which my 
conscience dictates to be the right one." ^ These words are 
expressive of the intrepid will, and corresponding action is 
all that can be expected of a statesman. But in this case 
the action marks the absence of clear vision. It shows that 
the terrible errors of the Tory school had, with the king, the 
force of truth. The America mirrored in his mind was a 
picture of faction, hypocrisy, ingratitude, and treason ; and 
its great characters, who were adding lustre to human 
nature, were but actors playing their parts. He looked 
upon New England as in a state of rebellion, the colonies 
as ripe for mischief, and believed that blows must decide 
whether they were subject to England or were independent.^ 
Nor had he the smallest doubt that blows, well laid on, 
would produce submission. He asked simply for a united 
England. His faith in the nation, in this state, was well- 
nigh perfect. He thought it needed only to lift a vigorous 
liand, and opposition would crimible. He even expected to 
see a resolve of Parliament " put an end to congresses.' 
Henceforth he approved of every measure for distressing- 
America, as the means of bringing about a return to duty.^ 

1 Donne's Correspondence of George III., i. 229. 

2 Ibid., i. 215. 8 Ibid., 274. 



408 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

His one steadfast purpose was subjection. If for nothing 
more than the monarchical principle, and as its represent- 
ative, he felt moved to inflict a deadly blow on the repub- 
licanism which he had been brought to believe had long- 
been pressing on 

" To tread down fair respect of sovereignty." 

In a letter of the 18th of November the king refers to 
important despatches just received from America.^ They 
probably gave the information that Congress had approved 
the resistance offered by the inhabitants of Massachusetts to 
the Regulating Act, — a fact which he heard with profound 
emotion. In his speech at the opening of Parliament 
(November 29), he said " that a most daring spirit of 
resistance and disobedience to the law still unhappily pre- 
vailed in the province of the Massachusetts Bay, and had, in 
divers parts of it, broke forth in fresh violences of a very 
criminal nature, " and that " these proceedings had been 
couuteuanced and encouraged " in the other colonies. He 
assured the two Houses that they might depend on his firm 
and steadfast resolution to withstand every attempt to weaken 
or impair the supreme authority of the imperial legislature 
over all the dominions of the crown.^ Both Houses, in 
addresses of thanks carried by great majorities, echoed the 
language from the throne, and pledged themselves to co- 
operate in the measures that might be necessary to maintain 
the dignity, safety, and welfare of the British Empire. On 
the 22d of December, Parliament adjourned to the 19tli of 
January. 

The proceedings of Congress now appeared in the public 
prints of England and Scotland, eliciting warm tributes.^ 

1 Donne supposes that these dcspatclies announced that congress liad passed the 
votes of October 8, pledging support to Massachusetts; but the series of votes to which 
he refers were printed in the "Edinburgh Advertiser" of Dec. 23, 1774. The 
despatches probably related to the votes of September approving the resistance of 
Massachusetts. 

2 rarliamentary History, xviii. 33. 

'^ The "Pennsylvania Evening Post," Jan. 28. 1775, has a piece from the " Lon- 



THE king's proclamation AND EEVOLUTION. 409 

The petition to the king was received by Franklin, who called 
a meeting of the colonial agents to consult on the manner of 
presenting it. Three declined to act, and hence the decision 
rested with Franklin, BoUan, and Lee. They, after con- 
sulting their best friends, gave the petition to Lord Dart- 
mouth, who soon (December 24) informed the agents "that 
His Majesty had been pleased to receive the petition very 
graciously, and to command him to tell tliem it contained 
matters of such importance, that, as soon as Parliament met, 
he should lay it before them." Soon after (Jan. 4, 1775), 
Lord Dartmouth, in a circular to the governors of the colo- 
nies, instructed them to use their endeavors to prevent the 
appointment of deputies within their several governments 
to the congress appointed for May ; and he reiterated the 
orders to General Gage, to use the force at his command to 
execute the Acts altering the Massachusetts charter. On the 
12th of January, the Privy Council decided that the proceed- 
ings of the congress did not supply a basis for reconcilia- 
tion ; and it was determined that the force of the nation 
should be used to protect the loyal in the colonies, and that 
all others should, by proclamation, be declared traitors. 

On the reassembling of Parliament (Jan. 19, 1775), the 
petition to the king, with a mass of papers relating to 
America, was laid before it. Great debates followed. Lord 
Chatham submitted a motion for the withdrawal of the troops 
from Boston, and Burke delivered his immortal speech in 
favor of conciliation. But the argument in support of a 
reversal of the policy of the administration fell powerless on 

don Public Ledger," which says: " I look on the dignity of the American Congress 
as equal to any assembly on earth, and their deliberations and resolutions more impor- 
tant in their nature and consequences than any which were ever before agitated in 
council." The "Edinburgh Advertiser" of December 23 issued a supplement 
containing a contmuation of the proceedings of Congress, with the following observa- 
tion: "The letters of the American Congress, written with so much spirit, sound 
reason, and true knowledge of the Constitution, have given more real uneasiness than 
all the other proceedings of the Congress." The "Boston Evening Post" of March 
27, 1775, has a letter, dated London, which says of the proceedings of Congress: 
"It is unpossible that any production could have done more honor to America, or 
gained more universal approbation." 



410 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

an intense nationality stirred by wounded pride. The inter- 
esting history of that period has been often related. The 
results may be briefly stated. The two Houses agreed (Feb- 
ruary 7) on a joint address ; and, to give it the more impos- 
ing form, both Houses waited on the king in a body and 
presented it. They declared that they never could so far 
desert the trust imposed on them as to relinquish any part 
of the sovereign autliority over all His Majesty's domin- 
ions ; and assured the king, in the most solemn manner, 
that it was their fixed resolution, at the hazard of their lives 
and properties, to stand by him. The king returned his 
thanks for this affectionate address, and, ten days later, 
called for an augmentation both of the land and naval 
forces. " I have not the smallest doubt," he wrote (February 
15), " when once vigorous measures appear to be the only 
means left of bringing the Americans to a due submission 
to the mother country, that the colonies will submit." Thus 
neither the fact of union nor the proceedings of the con- 
gress, from which so much was expected, had any political 
significance with the administration. They did not occasion 
even a pause in the execution of the coercive measures. 
The main effect of the action of the Americans seemed to bo 
astonishment that they should conceive it possible to resist 
successfully so great a power as England. The culmination 
of the whole series of measures was to be in the proposed 
proclamation. This, however, for the present, was with- 
held. 

These proceedings, soon followed by an Act shutting the 
ports of New England, gratified the national pride. They 
were popular. In a short time, loyal addresses from cities 
and corporations, from churchmen and dissenters, from the 
great seats of learning, from all parts of the kingdom — 
indorsed the coercive policy, and showed a public sentiment 
strongly in sympathy with the king.^ Thus England had a 

1 In Somerville's "Life and Times" (18G1), p. 187, it is said: "There does not 
perhaps occur in the annals of Britain a single instance of a war more popular at its 



THE king's proclamation AND REVOLUTION. 411 

strong government, or, more precisely, a strong adminis- 
tration. But, as remarked by one of her most distinguished 
modern statesmen, an administration which overleaps wis- 
dom and violates justice is one of the worst evils that can 
befall a country : ^ especially if it disregards the Constitution 
and still retains its hold on public sentiment : for then the 
bonds of constitutional morality are loosened, error has pos- 
session of the popular mind, and the waters of political life 
are poisoned at the fountain. 

The popular feeling was represented in Parliament, when 
Lord North introduced (Februaiy 20) his plan of concilia- 
tion. ^He proposed to tender to each colony, as a separate 
community, freedom from taxation, except such dirties as 
might be necessary for the regulation of the connnerce of 
the whole empire, on its making provision satisfactory to 
His Majesty in Parliament for the general defence and for 
the support of the civil government. The high prerogative 
party pronounced this a concession ; their dissatisfaction 
was general and violent ; and the storm, for two hours, was 
so furious that many thought the minister was about to be 
left in a minority. The king's friends, however, rallied to 
his support ; and he carried the resolution embodying his 
plan by the usual majority. The king now wrote, that, as 
this measure put an end to congresses, it certainly would 
have a good effect in England, and he hoped it would have 
a good effect also in at least some of the colonics.^ With 
keener insight, Colonel Barre said that it was intended to 
divide the Americans, — to dissolve that generous union 
in which they stood as one man in defence of their rights 



commencement than that which fatally took place between Great Britain and her 
colonics," — and (p. 100) "it was prompted and carried on by the desire of the 
British nation at large." 

1 '' Thus the nation had the satisfaction of finding that it had a strong govern- 
ment. But a strong government which overleaps wisdom and violates justice is 
one of the worst evils tliat can befall a country." — Lord John Russell's Life ind 
Times t:f Charles James Fox, i. 72. 

2 Donne's Correspondence of George III., i. 31. 



412 THE RISE OF THE EEPUBLIC. 

and liberties ; ^ and Lord Chatham wrote : " It is a mere 
verbiage, a most puerile mockery. Everything but justice 
will prove vain to men like the Americans, with principles 
of right in their minds and hearts, and with arms in their 
hands to assert those principles." ^ 

As the sword suspended by a thread was about to fall, 
Lord North caused it to be made known to Franklin that 
the administration, for the sake of peace, might repeal the 
tax on tea and the Port Act, but " that the Massachusetts 
Acts, being real amendments of their Constitution, must, 
for that reason, be continued, as well as to be a standing 
example of the power of Parliament." This involved the 
subjection of the free municipalities of America — indeed, 
its whole internal polity — to the caprice of majorities in 
a legislative body three thousand milos away, in which they 
were not represented, and consequently the establishment 
of centralization in its worst form. Opposed to this 
assumption was the principle of local self-government, 
obscurely realized in the German Fatherland, the basis of 
the polity of Saxon England, recognized as a fundamental 
in Magna Charta, guarantied in ximerica by royal char- 
ters, here, by usage, become written and unwritten law, and 
hence inherent and inviolable. Franklin comprehended the 
greatness of the issue : his simple method of diplomacy was 
frankness and truth ; and he answered the proposal of Lord 
North by saying that the claim of Parliament to alter the 
colonial charters and laws rendered all the constitutions 
uncertain, — and that as by the claim to tax they deprived 
Americans of their property, so by the claim of altering 
charters and laws at will they deprived them of all privileges 
and rights whatever, except what they should hold at the 
pleasure of Parliament.^ He accordingly, by his friend 

^ Parliamentary History, xviii. 334. 

2 Chatham's Correspondence, iv. 403. 

8 Sparks's Works of Franklin, v. 22, where is an aceount of the negotiations in 
London just before Franklin left England, dated March 22, 1775. Ramsay's History 
of the Revolution, i. 180. 



THE king's proclamation AND REYOLUTION. 413 

Lord Howe, sent the following declaration, to be delivered 
to Lord North : " The people of Massachusetts must suifer 
all the hazards and mischiefs of war, rather than admit the 
alteration of their charter and laws by Parliament. Thej 
that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary 
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." These were the 
last words which the illustrious American, on leaving Eng- 
land, addressed to the obsequious instrument of arbitrary 
power. ^ 

The news of the reception of the petition to the king and of 
the address of both Houses of Parliament reached America 
when the popular party was in a state of great excitement. 
The numerous public meetings were demonstrations that one 
heart animated and one understanding governed this party. 
In Massachusetts, John Adams was urging in the public 
prints that all men were by nature equal, and that kings had 
but delegated authority, which the people might resume. ^ 
A South-Carolina judge, William Henry Drayton, was declar- 
ing from the bench that he was servant not to the king, 
but to the Constitution, which he charged juries they were 
bound to maintain at the hazard of their lives.^ The Assem- 
blies were approving the measures of the last Congress, and 
appointing delegates to the second Congress. The colonies 
were moving so compactly and firmly as to elicit the remark, 
that, if any should neglect to choose delegates, the effect 
on it would be ruinous, as all intercourse would immediately 



1 Bancroft, vii. 242. The last sentence was much used in the Revolutionary 
period. It occurs even so early as November, 1755, in an Answer b}'^ the Assembly of 
Pennsylvania to the Governor, and forms the motto of Franklin's "Hi-storical Review 
of Pennsylvania." printed in 1759, appearing also in the body of the work, — thus: 
" There is not in any volume, the sacred writings excepted, a passage to be found 
better worth the veneration of freemen than this: ' Those who would give up essen- 
tial liberty to purchase a little temporarj' safety deserve neither libertj' nor safety.' " 
These words were sometimes put at the head of the calls of the patriots for public 
meetings, au instance of which is found in the "Boston Chronicle," Aug. 8, 1768. 
A portrait of Franklin, in the tifth volume of Almon's "Remembrancer," printed 
in 1778, has this motto engraved on it. 

- Novanghis, in Essex Gazette, Feb. 21, 1775. 

8 Charge in Essex Gazette, Feb. 21, 1775. 



414 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

cease between that colony and the whole continent.^ And 
when the adlierents of the ministry in England were arriving 
at the conclusion that " the Americans were a nation of noisy 
cowards," Joseph Warren uttered the prediction, "America 
must and will be free. The contest may be severe; the end 
will be glorious. We would not boast; but we think, united 
and prepared as we are, we have no reason to doubt of suc- 
cess, if we should be compelled to make the last appeal; but 
we mean not to make that appeal, until we can be justified 
in doing it in the sight of God and man."^ This prediction 
was based on the fact of union. The faith of the patriots in 
a United America was as strong as that of the king in a 
United England. 

The appeal to which these words referred was at hand. 
The Massachusetts militia, as before related,^ were organized, 
and the committee of safety were empowered to call them 
into the field whenever the attempt should be made to exe- 
cute by force the Regulating Acts ; while General Gage was 
instructed to disarm the inhabitants. As the news from 
England became more warlike, the committee of safety 
authorized the purchase of military stores, a portion of 
which were carried to Concord, a rural town about eighteen 
miles from Boston ; and they organized express riders to 
summon the militia, in case the king's troops should take the 
field. In this preparatory work Joseph Warren was partic- 
ularly active. 

Tlie military stores deposited in Concord General Gage 
resolved to destroy, and for this purpose planned an 
expedition which he intended should be a secret one. A 
detachment left Boston stealthily on the evening of the 
18th of April, and continued their march during the night. 
Warren, however, obtained intelligence of the movement in 
season to despatch two expresses, by different routes, into the 
country, with directions to call out the militia. The mes- 

1 Letter of Joseph Warren, April 3, 1775. 2 ibid. 

8 Sec page 392. 



THE king's proclamation AND REVOLUTION. 415 

sengers mounted horses and spurred on from town to town 
on their eventful errand. " The fate of a nation was riding 
that night." 

At sunrise on the nineteenth of April, the detachment 
reached Lexington, a small town eleven miles from Boston, 
on the road to Concord. The militia of this place had 
promptly answered the summons to parade, and were fired 
upon by tlie troops, who killed some and wounded others. 
The detachment then moved on, reached Concord, about six 
miles from Lexington, at seven o'clock, and halted in the 
centre of the town, whence parties were sent in different 
directions to destroy the military stores. A guard of a 
hundred men was stationed at the old North Bridge. About 
ten o'clock, as a body of the militia were approaching this 
bridge, the guard fired upon them, when more citizens were 
killed and wounded. No mausoleum ever commanded such 
honor as Americans attach to the graves of these early mar- 
tyrs to American liberty. This precious blood roused right- 
eous indignation in the breasts of the yeomanry, who had 
been flocking in, and stood with their old firelocks in their 
hands on that village green. They resolved to avenge the 
death of their brethren. Two hours after the firing at the 
bridge the king's troops began their march for Boston, when 
the militia fell upon them in such fiery spirit, and with such 
deadly effect, that the march was soon turned into a run. 
The proud veterans were saved from total destruction by a re- 
inforcement which left Boston in the morning and joined them 
at Lexington ; and they found security only in the shelter of 
ships of war at nightfall, when by the light of the flashing 
musketry they entered Charlestown and rested on Bunker Hill. 

The news of this scene of blood roused the spirit of the 
patriots throughout the colonies. John Stark in New Hamp- 
shire, Israel Putnam in Connecticut, the military oracles of 
their neighborhoods, leaving unfinished the work on their 
farms, and mounting their horses to join their brethren in 
peril, — the committee of Orange County, James Madison 



416 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

one of the number, pronouncing the blow struck in Massa- 
chusetts an attack on Virginia and every other colony/ — 
the patriots of the Carolinas entering into associations pledg- 
ing their lives and fortunes to defend an injured country ,2 — 
are illustrations of the general uprising to support at every 
hazard a common cause. The high resolve of that his- 
toric hour is embodied in the calm, sorrowful, determined 
words of Washington, penned in the quiet retreat of Mount 
Yernon. " Unhappy," he wrote, " is it to reflect that a 
brother's sword has been sheathed in a brother's breast, 
and that the once happy and peaceful plains of America are 
to be either drenched with blood or inhabited by slaves. Sad 
alternative ! Bat can a virtuous man hesitate in his choice ? " 
— language in wliich the yearnings of the patriot give affect- 
ing solemnity to the implied resolve of the soldier.^ The 
use of force to repel force without a thought of consequences 
was instinctively and universally justified by the popular 
party, and the preparation for it which foresight had enjoined 
proved efficient at least for the crisis. The bands appearing 
on the roads leading to Massachusetts had been organized 
and delegated by the public authorities to bear the sword 

1 The address of the committer, May 9, 1775, was fi'om Madison's pen. His 
father signs it as chairman. — Rives's Life of Madison, i. 95. 

2 An "Association" was unanimously agreed to in the provincial congress of 
South Carolina, on the 3d of June, 1775, and signed by all the members. It runs 
thus: ■• The actual commencement of hostilities against this continent by the British 
troops, on the 19th of April last, and the dread of insurrections . . . are causes suffi- 
cient to drive an oppressed people to arms. We, the subscribers, inhabitants of 
South Carolina, holding ourselves bound by that most sacred of all obligations, the 
duty of g'od citizens towards an injured country, and thoroughly convinced that 
under our present distressed circumstances we shall be justified before God ;ind man 
in resisting force by force, do unite ourselves under every tie of religion and honor, 
and associate as a band in her defence against every foe; hereby solemnly engaging 
that, whenever our continental or provincial councils shall deem it necessary, we 
will go forth, and be ready to sacrifice our lives and fortunes to secure her freedom 
and safety, and hold all those persons inimical to the liberty of the colonies who shall 
refuse to subscribe this Association." This was printed in the " Massachusetts Spy " 
of July 12, 1775. The form was used in North Carolina, and is nearly word for word 
the "celebrated Cumberland Association," dated June 20, 1775, which, Jones says, 
in his " Defence of North Carolina" (p. 179), was the composition of Robert Rowan. 
He remarks that these associations prevailed throughout the province. 

3 Irving's Life of Washington, i. 439. 



THE king's proclamation AND REVOLUTION. 417 

for the common defence. They met in the towns around 
Boston, and here pitched their tents. They placed the 
British army in a state of siege, and thus rendered it useless 
for the purposes for which it was sent over. These events 
created the stage of armed resistance. Thus the ten years 
of discussion, formation of public opinion, political organi- 
zation, and military preparation culminated in " a Runnymede 
in America." 

In the midst of the impulses and passions incident to an 
outburst of war, the governors of the colonies- received Lord 
North's plan of conciliation, which the king termed an olive- 
branch, and the administration commended in a pamphlet it 
caused to be written and circulated in the colonies. It was 
ordered to be submitted to the Assemblies. Several were 
petitioning the king. Connecticut sent a mission to confer 
with General Gage. The Plan accorded with this separate 
action, and was designed to tempt local pride and consequence : 
much was expected from it in England, and especially from 
the course of New York with regard to it. 

Governor Penn of Pennsylvania was the first to lay the 
Plan before an Assembly, giving the assurance in a message 
(May 2, 1775) that they would be revered to the latest pos- 
terity, if they should be instrumental in rescuing both coun- 
tries from the dreadful calamities of civil war. He most 
earnestly urged separate action. The Assembly was prompt 
to answer, that they would deem it a dishonorable desertion 
of sister colonies joined in a union conducted by general 
councils, to adopt a measure of so extensive a consequence 
without the consent of those engaged by solemn ties in the 
same common cause ; and they could form no prospect of 
any lasting advantages for Pennsylvania but such as must 
arise from a commimication (3f rights and property with the 
other colonics.^ The New Jersey Assembly, convened by 

1 The " Pennsylvania Evening Post" of May 6 has the Governor's Message and 
the answer. The latter (dated May 4) was "passed without one dissenting voice." 
It had the following sentence: " Your Honor, from your long residence and conver 

27 



418 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Governor Franklin expressly to receive this plan, informed 
the Governor (May 19) that they had not the least design of 
deserting the common cause, declined to act separately on 
it, and declared that they should abide by the united voice of 
Congress. The Yirghiia House of Burgesses, in an address 
(June 12) to Governor Dunmore, — a masterly paper, pre- 
pared by Jefferson, — remark, that, " as an individual part 
of the whole empire," they express their sentiments freely 
against an acceptance of this plan; but that they left the 
final determination to the General Congress, in the hope that 
this body would so strongly cement their former union that 
no partial application would produce the slightest departure 
from the common cause.^ The action of other bodies was in 
a similar tone. The general committee of New York in a 
circular to the other colonies, say, that the inhabitants had 
resolved to " stand or fall with the freedom of the conti- 
nent." 2 The committee of South Carolina depicted the 
danger of the several provinces entering into separate nego- 
tiations, and urged the duty of preserving the great conti- 
nental chain unbroken. ^ Subsequently every Assembly 
refused to treat separately with Great Britain, or otherwise 
than through the General Congress. In this manner it 
was irrevocably settled that this body should exercise the 

sation Avith us, must be persuaded that the people we represent are as peaceable and 
obedient to government, as true and faithful to their sovereign, and as affectionate 
and dutiful to their superior state, as any in the world; and tliough we are not 
inattentive to the opinion of posterit}', as it might reflect honor upon our country, 
3'et higher motives have taught us upon all occasions to demonstrate, by every 
testnnony, our devotion to our king and parent state" 

1 The "Pennsylvania Evening Post" of June 22, 1775, says: "Tlic printer was 
favored with the following address this morning by a gentleman from Williamsburg." 
It is entitled, "To His Excellcncj-, John Earl of Dunmore, His ^fajestA'^s Lieutenant, 
and Governor-General of the Colony and Dominion of Virginia, and Vice-Admiral 
of the same." It says: "Next to the possession of liberty, my Lord, we should con- 
sider such a reconciliation as the greatest of all human blessings " 

2 The circular, dated May 5, is in the " Pcnnsj'lvania Evening Post" of jNfaylo. 
8 The circular, dated April 27, 1775, is in the "Pennsylvania Evening Post" of 

May 20. The South Carolina Assembly, April G, 177G, resolved that this colony 
ehould not enter into any treat}' or correspondence with the court of Great Britain, 
or with any person or persons under that authority, but through tlie medium of 
the Continental Congress. — Almon's Remembrancer, iii. 200. 



THE king's proclamation AND REVOLUTION. 419 

national function of peace and war; and this carried wiih 
it the power to establish prize courts, the cases in which are 
determined by the laws of nations. This was the beginning- 
in America of what in matters of international law is termed 
sovereignty. 

The members elect to the General Congress were now on 
their way to Philadelphia, often receiving hearty testimonials 
of affection and respect from the communities through which 
they passed. On the 10th of May they convened in the 
building long known as the State House. Tliis was the 
beginning of the uses and associations which invest this 
venerable structure with national interest. It is a large, 
plain building of brick, two stories high. At that time it 
had a small belfry to contain the bell for the town clock, 
which still continues an object of curiosity. The provincial 
assembly held its sessions in one room, the supreme court 
of judicature in the other. ^ The upper story had a long 
gallery, used for festivals, and here the members of the last 
Congress had been entertained. The Congress assembled 
in the lower room, now Independence Hall, which still 
retains the style of finish it had then. The walls are graced 
with rich historic memorials of the days of the Revolution. 

Nearly all the delegates elect had been members of the 
last Congress. Among those who appeared for the first 
time in this body were George Clinton, one of the great 
characters of New York, subsequently Vice-President, -7- 
and Franklin, rich in fame and wisdom, and fresh from the 
inner circles of British politics. Georgia was at first par- 
tially and afterwards fully represented. The former presi- 
dent, Peyton Randolph, was unanimously re-elected, — also 
the former secretary, Charles Thomson. After providing for 
an invitation to the Reverend Jacob Duchd to read prayers, 
and the appointment of a door-keeper and messenger. Con- 
gress adjourned until the next day. 

On the 11th they proceeded to business, when the creden- 

1 Histoiy of Independence Hall, 52. 



420 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

tials were submitted.^ They term the members delegates, 
or deputies, — or simply say that the persons named were 
chosen to represent the colony, or to attend the session of 
the Continental Congress, The credentials which state the 
object of the meeting say, " to obtain redress of American 
grievances," *•' to recover and establish American rights 
and liberties," "to restore harmony between Great Britain 
and her colonies," and " to advance the best good of the 
colonies" ; and they confer power to consult and agree upon 
such measures as seem calculated to bring about these results. 
The Congress formed a general council, representing majori- 
ties in thirteen colonies who had agreed to abide by its 
decisions, and embodied the will of the people. It did not 
possess the machinery by which to carry its decrees into 
effect ; and yet so fixed was the determination to have them 
respected, that ways and means were found through various 
committees to give its acts the force of law. Hence it was 
the public authority, or head of a great movement based 
on the general consent, and as such was recognized and 
obeyed. 2 

The credentials being approved, the doors closed, and the 
members under the strongest obligations of honor enjoined 
to secrecy, business was formally brought before them in 
official papers. A letter from the agents in England stated 
that the petition to the king had been laid before Parlia- 
njent, " but undistinguished from a variety of papers and 
letters from America," and, relating the fate of other peti- 
tions, contained the remark that this mode could afford no 
reliance.^ John Hancock presented a paper from the Mas- 
sachusetts congress, dated May 3, 1775, reciting the events 

1 The credentials are printed in tlio Journals of Congress, i. 70-76. 

2 Ebcnezcr Hazard, the editor of the invaluable Collections l)eariiig his name, 
in a letter to Silas Deane, April 7, 1775, says of the Congress: "Had I the honor of 
being appointed a member of that truly august assembly (whose memory latest pos- 
terity will revere as that of the saviour of their country and liberties), I would not 
give it up for a kingdom " — 2 Col. Conn. Hist. Soc, 213. 

3 The letter was dated Loudon, Feb. 5, 177.5, and si^jnecl by \\'illiam Bollaii, 
Benjamin Franklin, and Arthur Lee. — Journals, i. 76. 



THE king's proclamation AND REVOLUTION. 421 

occasioned " b}^ the sanguinary zeal of the ministerial army," 
tlie patriots, Washington wrote, could not prevail on them- 
selves to call this army the king's troops.^ And the paper 
stating that the emergency precluded the possibility of their 
waiting for the direction of Congress in their military action, 
urged that a powerful army on the side of America was the 
only means left to stem the rapid progress of a tyraimical 
ministry. In a paper of May 16 this Ijody dwelt more fully on 
the political situation, declaring " that government in full 
form ought to be taken up immediately," but, though urged 
by the most pressing necessity, declining to assume the 
"rciins of civil government without the consent of Con- 
gress." They stated that -they were ready to submit to such 
general plan as it might direct for all the colonies, or would 
study to form such a government as would not only promote 
their advantage, but the union and interest of all America, 
and that they anxiously waited explicit advice on this sub- 
ject.^ The city and county of New York, through their 
delegates, requested (May 15) to be advised how to conduct 
towards the British troops expected there. The taking of 
Ticonderoga required a decision relative to the military 
stores that were captured. The New-Hampshire convention, 
in a letter of the 23d of May, stated, that, when the alarm 
sounded that the foe had begun a scene of blood on the lives 
of their brethren, they generally, listening only to the calls 
of humanity, ran to give aid with all the speed of common 
interest and friendship ; that there was not time " to consult 
America at large," and they voted to raise two thousand 
men ; that they ardently desired to preserve the connection 
between Great Britain and the colonies, yet many among 
tlicm were disposed to conclude that the voice of God and 
Nature, since the late hostile attempt, was that they were 
bound to look to their whole political affairs ; that they had 
" not yet largely and fully consulted with one another ou 

1 Sparks' s Works of "Washin^on, ii. 406. 

2 Journals of Congress 



422 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

this article," and trusted they should keep self-defence in 
view until they heard " the united plan oS the colonies in the 
general council, which they prayed and trusted might be 
under the influence of Heaven." ^ Tlie committee of Meck- 
lenburg County, North Carolina, in a series of resolves, 
declared that the address of both Houses of Parliament in 
February annulled and vacated all civil and military com- 
missions granted by the crown, provided a set of rules for 
their county to meet the exigency, by which officers were 
to exercise their powers by virtue of the choice of the people 
independently of the crown, and sent the resolves to Con- 
gress.^ The Massachusetts papers were referred to a special 

1 Letter by Order of the Convention, in Force's Archives,' 4th Series, ii , 696. 
This noble letter was signed by Matthew Thornton. It contains the earliest sugges- 
tion on the subject of independence, by an organized body, that I have met with. It 
was received and read in Congress June 2, 1775. I have not seen it in the news- 
papers of the tnne. 

2 The North-Carolina convention of August, 1774, and the Continental Associa- 
tion of the succeeding October, advised the ch!)icc b}^ the several counties of com- 
mittees to carry out the plan of the General Congress. iMecklenburg County, with 
thirty-five other counties of this colony, chose its committee. There are notices in 
the newspapers of monthly mpetings of these committees, at which, it is said, persons 
not members were present. The connnittec of.J\[ecklenburg met in Charlotte on the 
31st of May, 1775, other pei'sons also being probably present. The committee ex- 
pressed its sentiments on public affairs in a preamble and nineteen resolves, admirably 
worded, from the pen of Dr. Ephraim Brevard. They aflinned that the Joint 
address of both Houses of Parliament, in February, declaring the colonies in rebellion, 
annulled and vacated all offices and suspended the constitution of the colonies; and, 
for the better preservation "f order, provided a set of rules to serve for the county 
until the provincial congress should "regulate the jurisprudence of the province," 
or until Parliament should resign its arbitrary pretensions, — also for the choice of 
county officers, to exorcise authority by virtue of this choice, and independently 
of the crown of Great Britain. 

These resolves were read to the people from the steps of the court-house, and 
printed in "The Cape Fear Mercur}'," "The South-Carolina Gazette" of .lune 
13, 1775, and, among Northern journals, in "The Xew-York Journal" of June 29, 
1775, and four of the resolves, with the preamble, in the " JNIassachusetts Spy," at 
Worcester, July 12, 1775. The publication in the "Spy" had the following head: 
" Charlotte Town, Mecklenburg County, Maj' 31, 1775. This da}- the conunittee of 
this county met and passed the following resolves." On the 20th of June, 1775, 
Governor Wright, of Georgia, sent the whole series in the " South-Carolina Gazette " 
to Lord Dartmouth. (Wheeler, North Carolina, ii. 255.) On the 30th of June, 
1775, Governor Jlartin, in a letter to the Earl of Dartmouth, says, he sends him a 
newspaper containing "the resolves of the conmiittee of Mecklenburg," and states 
that he wa^ informed that a copy was sent oil' by express to the Congress in Phila- 



THE king's proclamation AND REVOLUTION. 423 

committee, and the New- York request to the committee of 
the whole. The Mecklenburg resolves were not formally 
laid before Congress. 

delpliia as soon as tlicy were " passed in committee." Ou the 8tli of August, 1775, he 
issued a long and bitter proclamation, recounting the practices of the colony of North 
CMFoIina, which he alleged to have been treasonable. This occupies more than one 
side of the "Pennsylvania Journal " of Nov. 1, 1775. In it he says, "I have seen 
a most infamous publication in the 'Cape Fear Mercury,' importing to be resolves 
of a set of people styling themselves a committee for the county of Meclclenburg, most 
traitorously declaring the entire dissolution of the laws, government, and Constitution 
of this country, and setting up a rule." The inference is fair that this was the news- 
paper which (Jovcrnor Martin sent to Lord Dartmouth. It will be observed that in 
all these authorities the word "committee" is used. 

The first resolve, here copied Irnm the "Massachusetts Spj'," is as follows • 
"That all commissions, civil and militar\% heretofore granted by the crown, to be 
exercised in these colonies, are null and void, and the constitution of each particular 
colony wholly suspended." The second is: "That the provincial congress of each 
province, under the direction of the groat Continental Congress, is invested with all 
the legislative and executive powers within their respective provinces, and that no 
other legislative or executive power does or can exist at this time in any of these 
colonics." These resolves are, word for word,', like those printed in the "South- 
Carolina Gazette." 

This action, though bold in the direction of self-government, was still in the spirit 
of subordination of the county to the coIon\', or to the decision of the provincial 
congress and the Continental Congress, — that is to say, in entire harmony witli the 
revolutionary movement. North Carolina may point to it with pride as evincing 
the spirit of the peoi)Ie, and even as taking substantially the position that was taken 
on the 15th of May, 1776, when Congress recommended all the colonies to form local 
governments. 

This record, however, Ibund no place in the earlj- histories of the State or of the 
United States, because their authors did not search the ncAvspapers. The silence 
of the historians probably induced the actors in the proceeding to think it liad been 
forgotten, and to make the laudable attempt to supply the supposed loss of the 
record from recollection. This was done in a series drawn up before 1793, which 
remained twenty-five years in manuscript. At length the "Raleigh Register" of 
April 30, 1819, printed five resolves, termed " The Mecklenburg Declaration of 
Independence," bearing the date of May 20, 1775. They contain ideas and matter 
relative to local afiairs to be found in the resolves of May 31, 1775, with a few 
phrases of the Declaration of Independence of 1776 : some accounts say, adopted at 
a convention of delegates held in Charlotte; other accounts, at a meeting "of 
perhaps halithe men in the county." The largest number named as being present 
is twent3--nine. The modern history of this proceeding culminated in 1842, in a 
memorial addressed to the Assembly of North Carolina, in which it is presented as 
"full of moral sublimity, and a source of elevating State pride," that the sons of 
North Carolina should assemble at Charlotte, and v.ithout assurance of support from 
:uiv quarter should "declare themselves a free and independent people, and of right 
ought to be sovereign and self-governing." nVhecler's North Carolina, ii. 2.9.) 
The five resolves, much altered, were printed in 1829, by Martin, in his '• History of 
North Carolina," together with an additional resolve. In a North-Carolina publica- 
tion, ia 18.)3, it was stated, that it was not known where Martin obtained his copy, 



424 THE BISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

These applications forced on the popular leaders in Con- 
gress an issue which in their local assemblies they had 
endeavored to avoid, — the issue of sovereignty, the influ- 
ence of which, latent or obvious, direct or indirect, gives 
to communities their tendencies and their fate.^ Sovereignty 
is the fountain of power. Its definition by the jurists of 
the Old World was colored by customs, ideas, and preju- 
dices which time had rendered venerable. It " had some- 
times been viewed as a star, which eluded our investigation 
by its immeasurable height ; sometimes it had been consid- 
ered as a sun, that could not be distinctly seen by reason 
of its insufferable splendor," '^ It was regarded as some- 
thing more than human, and held in mysterious and pro- 
found awe. As such, it had been the dispenser of political 
rights, — and especially when a nation, however diversified 
as to race, was regarded as one community, and was ruled 
from a single central point. The terms in which Americans 
throughout the colonial period expressed their loyalty to the 
king indicated that they shared largely the old feeUng as to 



which was described as "evidently a polislied edition" of the copj- printed in 1819. 
(Randall's Life of Jeffeison, iii. 575.) The copy of 1819 was widely circulated. 
Its genuineness was questioned, and it occasioned a voluminous controversy. The 
aged patriots, in letters and certificates, supplied recollections of events that occurred 
when the resolves were passed, vvhich, with the resolves of May 20, were printed by 
the assembly of North Carolina, in 1831, in a pamphlet. 

The resolves of May 20, 1775 (the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence), 
are examined with critical acimien by Hon. Hugh Blair Grigslj}', in his admirable 
"Discourse of the Virginia Convention of 1776" (1855), and by Dr. Randall, m 
uis thorough "Life of Jefferson," Appendix No. 2, vol. iii. (1858), who present facts 
and reasonings adverse to their genuineness which seem to be conclusive. I have 
not met with any contemporary reference, in manuscript or in print, to the conven- 
tion or the public meeting whicli is said to have passed these resolves. 

1 "What is the source of the sovereign power, and what is its limit? Whence 
does it come, and ^vhere does it stop ? In the answer to this question is involved 
the real principle of government; for it is this principle whose influence, direct or 
indirect, latent or obvious, gives to societies their tendency and their fate" — 
Guizot, History of Representative Government, 57- 

2 Works of James Wilson, i. 25. ^^'ilson was bom in Scotland, studied law in 
Edinburgh and Glasgow, and was a member of the Pennsylvania Convention, a 
delegate in the Congress of 1775, and subsequently Judge of the United States 
Supreme Court, and Professor in the University of Pennsylvania. His lectures and 
speeches are well worthy the study of Americans. 



THE king's proclamation AND REVOLUTION. 425 

sovereignty. Their training, however, in the municipality 
and the general assembly in tlie exercise of seU'-guvernment, 
and the convictions tliey had attained as to wliat should be 
uuide Tundamentals in a system ol" public liberty, qualified 
them ibr the practical solution ot" the problem ; and when, 
forced back on themselves, they were obliged to gi'apple 
with it, '• to trace the dread and redoubtable sovereign to 
his ultimate and genuine source, he was found, as he 
ought to have been found, in the free and independent 
man."' ^ Sovereignty is in the people. In them are 
'' tliose inherent powers of society, which no climate, uo 
time, no constitution, no contract, can ever destroy or di- 
mhiish." In them, as the supreme power, resides the right 
of connnand, or the right to institute organic law, — to 
establisli public authority, and to compel obedience to it. 
On this foundation rose the American superstructm'e of 
government. 

Tlie architects of this superstructure, however, did not 
feel themselves called upon to cut loose from the past or 
to deal with man according to any untried theory of natural 
rights ; but, regarding him as a political being, they dealt 
with him as he stood related, by the cumulative law of 
ages, to the institutions of family and society, and as 
related to the commonwealth by a polity which he had 
moulded. They regarded him as thus entitled to a great 
inheritance of order, but subject to correlative obhgations 
of duty. Hence, instead of yielding to the demands of 
amiable enthusiasts, or of confident theorists, or of merci- 
less iconoclasts, and trying to cast society into a new mould, 
on the llattering, but deceitful, promise that in the process 
every wrong should disappear, they dealt with man on the 
basis of existing facts. They eonccntrated their elforls to 
preserve what had been gained, in the faith that time would 
bring whatever wa* wrong in existing law nearer to that 
justice which is "tlie only true sovereign and supreme 
majesty on earth." 

1 Works of James Wilson, i. 25. 



426 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

Thus, throughout their work, the founders of the Repub- 
lic recognized the fact that the people had not been ruled 
from a single central point, but were divided into commu- 
nities, or bodies politic, each of which had exercised a share 
of political power. Each community occupied a territory of 
definite boundaries, each had a regular government and a 
distinct code of laws, each was a unit. In changing the base 
of the sovereignty, or in effecting a revolution, they used, iu 
each, so far as it was practicable, existing forms of law. 
Except in Pennsylvania, they did not attempt to change 
the qualifications of voters until after the Declaration of 
Independence. Hence the political action which brought 
about this change was determined by those qualified under 
the law to vote in elections. They were summoned to act 
on test questions throng] i the regular forms of proceed- 
ing in the municipalities, and transmitted their views by 
representation to the larger bodies, expressing the voice of 
the unit called the Colony or State. The will of the 
majority, collected and declared in this manner, was held 
to be binding as the law, whether it related to the domes- 
tic concerns of the Colony or State, or to the general wel- 
fare of the Colonies or States in union, or the nation. This 
fidelity to a vital principle in republics — submission to the 
regularly collected will of the majority — may be traced 
through all the confusion and turmoil unavoidable in the 
transition from the old to the new, during which influence 
had necessarily to supply the place of established public 
authority. The period of transition was brief in the case 
of the local governments, which, in each community, were 
develoj)mcnts gradually adjusted to their circumstances and 
wants ; but to adjust the powers of a general government, 
adequate to the needs of a nation composed of independent 
States, required the experience and deliberations of several 
years. The basis of both governments was the same, — the 
people. The qualified voters, it was assumed, expressed 
the will of the whole people. This will was embodied in 



THE king's proclamation AND REVOLUTION. 427 

■written constitutions, or organic laws. Those were acts by 
wliicli the sovereignty prescribed tlie spheres and degrees of 
the power which officers chosen periodically should exercise 
in the unit of the State, or of the States in union, or United 
States, — in other words, the rules that should govern the 
conduct of the executive, legislative, and judicial agencies 
in the functions of government. The formative process was 
termed taking up, ordaining, instituting government. In 
doing this, the qualified voters were practically the sover- 
eigns.^ The result which they reached — a republican gov- 
ernment — was a solution practically of the profound ques- 
tion of sovereignty ; and the infant nation was saved from 
being offered up by enthusiasts as a sacrifice on the unsettled 
shrine of political ideas.- 

The case of Massachusetts involved not merely the ques- 
tion of sovereignty, but that of cooperation also, — wdicther 
the Congress should advise its inhabitants "to set up a 
government in full form," or take a step equivalent to 
independence, before it could be known whether the other 
colonies would join in such a measure. It had long been 
presented in the public prints as the only step that could 
place American liberty on a permanent foundation ; and the 
foremost of the popular leaders were convinced, that, in the 
progress of events, it was inevitable. But the po])ular party 
generally, through their various organizations, disclaimed 
such a purpose, and averred tliat they aimed only at a redress 
of grievances. Tims, the Virginia Convention, in dealing wdth 
Lord North's plan of conciliation, averred, that, next to the 
possession of liberty, they would regard reconciliation as 

1 The late Josiali Quincy, in relating the circumstance that he and the late 
Lord I.yndluirst, the son of John Singleton Copley, were born the same year in 
Boston, said: "It fell to the lot of j'oung Copley to emigrate to a land the natural 
growth of which was lords, and so he became a lord : it fell to my lot to be reared in 
a land the natural growth of which is sovereigns, and so I became a sovereign." 

2 Necker, after independence had been won, said to Americans: '"Uo not offer 
up yoiu- nation as a sacrifice at the unsettled shrine of political ideas." — Taken 
from Wilson's speecli iu Elliot's Debates, ii. 529. 



428 THE EISE OP THE EEPUBLIC. 

the greatest of all himian blessings ; ^ and the Massachu- 
setts Provincial Congress declared that the bloody mark of 
ministerial vengeance, made on the day of Lexington and 
Concord, had not detached them from their lawful sover- 
eign. John Adams had recently, in print, pronounced the 
assertion that the inhabitants panted after independence 
" as great a slander on the province as ever was committed 
to writing." ^ Nothing was clearer than that the public 
mind was not ripe for independence, and to take such a 
step prematurely was to invoke division and ruin. The 
debates on this case, in the committee of the whole, were 
long and earnest. Congress were quite unanimous in declin- 
ing to give such advice as in their judgment involved the 
point of sovereignty, and would close the door of reconcilia- 
tion. They decided the case on a consideration of its 
special circumstances, rather than on general principles. 
It was judged that the English precedent of the conven- 
tion that deposed King James would meet it. The charter, 
given by the king, was held to be in the nature of permanent 
declaratory law, irrevocable and unalterable ; and hence the 
two penal Acts of Parliament were judged illegal, and so null 
and void. As the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor recog- 
nized these Acts, they, like James II., were considered absent, 
and their offices vacant. But as the evils of suspended 
authority were intolerable, the Provincial Congress was 
advised to Avrite letters calling for an election of representa- 
tives under the charter, who, in the customary mode, should 
choose councillors, " to exercise the powers of government 
until a governor of His Majesty's appointment consent to 
govern the colony according to its charter." 

The answer given to New Yorlc was in the same spirit of 
moderation. The inhabitants were advised to remove the 



1 Jefferson, in his "Notes on Virginia" (p. 165, ed. 1825), says of Virginia: 
"It is well known that in July, 1775, a separation from Great Britain and establish- 
ment of repiiblicaai government had never yet entered into an}' person's mind." 

2 Novanglus, dated Mai-ch 13, 1775. 



THE king's proclamation AND REVOLUTION. 429 

warlike stores from the town ; to allow the British troops, 
daily expected, to land, and occupy barracks, so long as 
they were peaceable ; but to resist the erection of fortifica- 
tions, and the cutting off the communication between town 
and country, and to repel force by force. Congress ordered 
an inventory to be taken of the cannon and stores captured 
at Ticondcroga, with the view of returning them when it 
should be consistent with the overruling law of self-preser- 
vation. 

The delegates from North Carolina advised the committee 
of Mecklenburg County to be a little more patient, until 
Congress should adopt the measure thought to be best.^ 

Other action of Congress evinced its stern determination. 
When its president, Peyton Randolph, returned to Virginia, 
it unanimously chose (May 24) John Hancock as his suc- 
cessor ; elevating to the highest post of honor one who was 
identified with the action of the colony pronounced in rebel- 
lion by the king. Two days later (May 26), " ardently 
wishing for a restoration of harmony," it resolved to present 
" an humble and dutiful petition to His Majesty ; " but at 
the same time, "for the express purpose of securing and 
defending these colonies," it further resolved that they 
" be immediately put into a state of defence." It accord- 
ingly thereupon assumed the force besieging Boston, and 
adopted a code of rules for the government of the army of 
the United Colonies. 

Now arose the delicate question of the appointment of the 
commander-in-chief. Successive opportunities had made 
known the qualities and resources of George Washington. 
Service in the French war had developed in him singular 
military ability, in union with marked personal character ; 
and his merits were discussed not only in America, but in 

1 The recollections of Captain James Jack, in 1819, at the age of eighty-eight, 
who bore the Mecklenburg resolve to Philadelphia, and of Rev. Francis Cummins, 
a student in Charlotte in 1775, are as applicable to the resolves of March 31, 1775, 
as to those dated May 20. The fact in the text is from the letter of Cunmiins. — 
Pamphlet of the Slate of North Carolina in Force's Archives, 4th Series, ii. 85^ 



430 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Europe. He was so much of a public man tliat his move- 
meiits were chronicled in the journals. His political course, 
during the long controversy with the mother country, had 
been decisive and manly. His name went through the colonies 
as a signer of the Virginia non-importation agreement, and 
as chairman of the county meeting where contributions were 
made for Boston, where Massachusetts was enjoined to resist 
the Regulating Acts, and where the militia was organized. 
Then, without thought of an independent fortune at risk, he 
gave utterance to the most eloquent speech in the Virginia 
convention, — that he would raise a company, and march at 
its head for the relief of Boston. In tlie first Congress, he 
ranked foremost among its great men for solid wisdom and 
sound judgment ; and in the second Congress, being then a 
colonel of the Virginia militia, and commanding four com- 
panies, he appeared in unifoi-m. In this way Providence 
revealed to America the treasure reposing in her bosom. 
This simple record will account for the expectation that 
he would be selected to lead the American armies, seen in 
the letters of James Warren, and of Elbridge Gerry for 
himself and Joseph "Warren. It is to the honor of 
John Adams that he expressed the general conviction in 
the debate on the adoption of the army, when he said : " I 
had but one gentleman in my mind for that important com- 
mand, and that was a gentleman from Virginia, who was 
among us, and very well known to all of us, — a gentle- 
man whose skill and experience as an officer, whose inde- 
pendent fortune, great talents, and excellent universal 
character would command the approbation of all America, 
and unite the cordial exertions of all the colonics better 
than any other person in the Union." Thomas Johnson, 
of Maryland, nominated him commander-in-chief of the 
armies raised and to be raised for the defence of America, 
and John Adams seconded the motion. The election (June 
15) was by ballot, and it was unanimous. The vote rc[)re- 
seiited the popular feeling and judgment. The great sclec- 



THE king's proclamation AND EEVOLUTION. 431 

tion was accompanied by no competition, and was followed 
by no envy worth the naming.^ The trust was conferred 
with the simple charge to see to it " that the liberties of 
the country receive no detriment." The character thus 
advanced to the position of the representative man of the 
cause and the personification of the sentiment of union was 
the product of the times. It Avas wholly and grandly 
American. 

When Washington left Philadelphia to engage in the 
work which Avas to gain for him the appellation of Father 
of liis Country, Thomas Jefferson (June 21) entered Con- 
gress. Several productions written by him were passed 
round among the members, as evidence of his talent in the 
use of the pen. During the preceding year, he published 
his " Summary of the Rights of British America," in which 
lie held that expatriation was a natural right, in the face of 
the old law maxim. Once a subject, always a subject ; ^ and 
lie brought the answer of Virginia to Lord North's plan, 
already referred to, a paper which came up to the ideas of 
the great men who were wisely guiding the Revolution. 
These productions, for soundness of views, felicit}^ of lan- 
guage, and genuhie American sentiment, will bear the test 
of the severest criticism. Their author was received with 

1 Silas Dcanc, June IG, 1775, wrote that he was "elected to that oflicc by the 
unanimous voice of all America." — Connecticut Historical Collections, ii. 204. 

Washington, in a letter to his wife, on liis appointment, said: "It has been a 
kind of destiny that has thrown me upon this service " ; to his brother Augustine: 
" I have been called upon, by the unanimous voice of the colonies, to take the com- 
mand of the Continental Army " ; and to the nidependent companies in Virginia, 
"It was an honor I was solicitous to avoid," but "the partiality of Congress, 
assisted by a political motive, rendered my reasons unavailing." .John Adams, in 
his "Autobiography" (Works, ii. 415), and his grandson, lion. Charles Francis 
Adams, in an interesting paper (Proceedings of Massachusetts Historical Society, 
1858-00, p. 08), give the only details of this great measure I have met with. Eam- 
say (History of the Eevolution, i. 210) says: "It was a fortunate circumstance 
attending his election, that it was accompanied by no competition ai d followed by 
no envy. That same general impulse on the public mind which led the colonists 
to agree in many other particulars pointed to AVashiugtou as the most proper 
person," iS:c. 

2 The " Edinburgh Advertiser" of Nov. 18 and Dec. 9, 1771, has long extracts 
from " The Summary View of the Eights of British America." 



432 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

« 

open arms by the members, was at once called upon for 
important service, and soon took rank among the leaders. 

Congress aimed to act as dutiful subjects contending for 
their constitutional rights, — herein representing the great 
majority of their constituents. While they invoked the 
blessing of Almighty God on George III., the lawful sover- 
eign, they reasserted the grounds on which the liberties and 
immunities of the colonies were based, declaring their cause 
just and their union perfect. They solemnly averred that 
the United Colonies, having advanced from commercial op- 
position to armed resistance to the arbitrary measures of 
Government, would not lay down their arms until the hos- 
tilities which had been invoked in support of these measures 
ceased, the grievances which they had been so long suffering 
were redressed, and — the new feature — a guaranty was 
provided for the future. This was the ultimatum. 

The points in controversy were treated in elaborate pa- 
pers, prepared with care, and characterized by great ability. 
In an earnest appeal to the Canadians, it was contended 
that the issue embraced freedom of conscience, — that the 
'sun did not shine on a single freeman in all their extensive 
dominions, — that the destiny of the Catholic and Prot- 
estant colonies were strongly linked together, — and a cor- 
dial invitation was extended to that people to join the Union. 
In a declaration of the causes of taking up arms, it was 
averred that there was no wish to dissolve the connection 
which had so long and happily subsisted between Great 
Britain and her colonies, but only to invoke reconciliation. 
In an address to the inhabitants of Great Britain, calling 
them " friends, countrymen and brethren, fellow-subjects," 
Congress entreated them to disclaim the acts of injustice 
of the administration, and affirmed that the charge that the 
colonies were aiming at independence was supported only 
by the allegations of the ministry, not by the actions of the 
colonies. In a letter to the Lord Mayor of London, they 
declared that " North America " wished most ardently for a 



THE king's proclamation AND REVOLUTION. 433 

lasting connection with Great Britain on terms of just and 
equal liberty, " less than which generous minds would not 
offer, nor brave and free ones be willing to receive." In an 
address to the Assembly of Jamaica, they dwelt on the 
ministerial insolence, which had become lost in ministerial 
barbarity. In an appeal to the people of Ireland, they 
remarked: "Though vilified as wanting spirit, we are deter- 
mined to behave like men ; though insulted and abused, we 
wish for reconciliation ; though defamed as seditious, we are 
ready to obey the laws ; and, though charged with rebellion, 
will cheerfully bleed in defence of our sovereign, in a right- 
eous cause. What more can we say ? What more can we 
offer? " And, as though gifted with prophetic insight, they 
remarked that, with a firm reliance on the Supreme Disposer 
of all human events, they anticipate already the golden period, 
when Liberty, with all the gentle arts of peace and humanity, 
shall establish her mild dominion in this Western World, 
and erect eternal monuments to the memory of those virtuous 
patriots and martyrs who shall have fought tind bled and 
suffered in her cause. 

Franklin submitted to Congress a plan of confederation 
and perpetual union, with the name of " The United Colo- 
nies of North America." It contemplated the accession of 
Canada and the West-India Islands, and even provided for 
the admission of Ireland. It recognized the old local self- 
government in the unit of the colony, while it aimed at a 
general government of limited powers for the whole. It 
proposed that each colony should retain and enjoy as much 
as it might think fit of its present laws, customs, and pecu- 
liar jurisdictions within its own limits, and the right of 
amending its constitution ; that the Union should have an 
annual congress to make general ordinances relating to 
commerce, the currency, the post-oflfice, an army, and a 
common treasury ; that this congress should determine on 
war and peace, and settle disputes between colony and 
colony ; and that it should choose an executive council 

28 



434 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

to manage the continental business, and to deal with for- 
eign nations. The power of taxation was to remain with 
the several colonies. The plan was to be snl^mitted to the 
colonies for their ratification, and provided for future amend- 
ments. It was not acted on at this session.^ 

The plan of Lord North for conciliation liad been referred 
to the Congress by three Assemblies. On the 30th of May, a 
paper in tlie handwriting of Grey Cooper, Under-Secretary 
of the Treasury, was laid before Congress, as having been 
sent by the minister. It stated that no further relaxation 
could be admitted, as the temper and spirit of tlic nation 
were so much against concessions, that the administration, 
if it were their intention to propose any, could not carry 
them. A committee, consisting of Franklin, Jefferson, 
John Adams, and Richard Henry Lee, was appohited 
(July 22) to consider this plan. The European world could 
not shoAv four greater statesmen. They agreed upon a 
report, prepared by Jefferson ; and it was adopted in Con- 
gress on the 31st of July. 

According to Lord North's plan, each colony v/as to enjoy 
exemption from all taxation, except duties for the regu- 
lation of commerce, as soon as its Assembly should make 
such provision for its proportion of the common defence and 
for the support of civil government as would be satisfactory 
to the King and Parliament. This offer was pronounced by 
Congress a high breach of the privilege of determining the 
purposes for which moneys should be granted. It was 
characterized as unreasonable, because it obliged the colo- 
nies to purchase the favor of Parliament without knowing the 
price ; insidious, as likely to produce a division of tlie colonies, 
by grants to some of easy terms, and compelling others 
to renewed opposition, separate from their sister colonics ; 
insulting, since the presence of fleets and armies seemed to 
present the proposition as addressed rather to their fears 

1 Tliis plan was submitted on the 21st of July, 1775. It is hi Sparks's Works 
of Franklin, v. 91. 



THE king's proclamation AND REVOLUTION. 435 

than to tlicir free dctcrminatioii ; unnecessary, as the objects 
specified had been fully provided for in their character as 
freemen ; unjust, as it required equality of contributions, 
while the monopoly of trade possessed by Great Britain cut 
them off from the commerce of the world; a violation of 
the plan of civil government within their own jurisdiction, 
which was suited to their circumstances, and which they 
claimed to enjoy without molestation as freely as the plan 
of civil government by Parliament was enjoyed within their 
jurisdiction; unsatisfactory, as the proposition was only a 
suspension of the existing mode of taxation, but not a renun- 
ciation of the right ; and, what was of more importance than 
all, deceptive, being held up before the world to induce a 
belief that there was nothing in dispute but the levying of 
taxes, whereas the claim to alter the charters and establish 
the laws of the colonies was still persisted in, which would 
leave them without any security for their lives and liberties. 
In conclusion, Congress say, that nothing but their own 
exertions can defeat the ministerial scheme of death or 
abject submission. 1 In this remarkable answer, the United 
Colonies took the position which Franklin, in his last word 
to Lord North, assigned to Massachusetts, — deliberately 
choosing the hazards of war, rather than give up their 
ancient right of self-government. Thus they proceeded as 
though they were one nation dealing with another nation, 
when the ministry had resolved to deal with them only as 
separate units. 

A second petition to the king was now agreed upon, 
through the efforts of a party represented by Dickinson and 
Jay, who had faith in its efficacy in procuring a redress of 
grievances. . Those who lacked this faith considered the 
united cooperation of the colonies as the condition of 
success. The people had been far from being unanimous. 

1 This answer to Lord North's resoUition was printed in the "Pennsylvania Even- 
ing Post" of Aug. 8, 1775. It is dated July 31, and signed by John Hancock, 
President. It is in eveiy newspaper I have been able to consult. 



436 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

The Tories had opposed the Association. Numbers even 
of Whigs, though acquiescing in it as an instrument of self- 
defence, were reluctant to push it so far as to make it law : 
some, on the principle that it was a duty to submit to the 
sovereignty ; many, from self-interest ; the mass, for fear 
of the mischievous consequences.^ Whigs of the stamp of 
Dickinson involuntarily shrank from the step of independ- 
ence. It was alleged, that, if the proposed petition met 
with the fate of former petitions, the moderate, who thus 
far had held back, and had not taken sides, when they were 
convinced there was no hope but in war, would heartily 
unite in prosecuting it with efficiency.^ The petition, drawn 
up by Dickinson, spoke in affectionate terms of the king, 
and expressed the wish that his lot might be the signal and 
lasting glory achieved by illustrious personages, who, in 
extricating states from dangerous convulsions, had erected 
noble monuments to their fame. It averred that the colonists 
entertained too tender a regard for the kingdom from which 
they derived their origin to ask such a reconciliation as 
might in any manner be inconsistent with its dignity or 
welfare ; and it besought the king that he would be pleased 
to direct some mode by which the united applications of 
his faithful colonists to the throne, in pursuance of their 
common councils, might be improved into a happy and per- 
manent reconciliation. It was signed by the members indi- 
vidually, as the previous petition had been, and was intrusted 
to the care of Richard Penn, a loyalist, who immediately 
sailed for England. It was composed with great elegance, 
and, Gordon says, deserved to be written in letters of gold, 
for the sentiments it breathed toward the parent state.^ 

1 Gordon, History of the American War, i. 426. 

2 The "Essex Gazette," July 21, 1775, has a letter from rhilarloliibia, dated 
July G, which saj's: "'The Congress liave determined to petition the King once 
more under tiiis idea, that, if it should be rejected, those moderate people who now 
keep back will, when they find no hopes but in the success of a war, most iioartily 
unite with us in prosecuting it efieclively." 

8 Gordon, ii. 71. He says (ii. 32) that Dickinson labored hard to procure this 
second petition, and that the opposition occasioned strong debates. Sparks says 



THE king's PUOCLAMATION AND REVOLUTION. 437 

Congress, oil the first day of August, adjourned to the 
5th of September. The public prints stated that it had 
established postal communication from New Hampshire to 
Georgia, and appointed Franklin postmaster ; had designated 
two persons to act as joint treasurers of the United Colo- 
nies, and taken the control of Indian affairs from the officers 
of the crown ; but had made no other alteration of " tlie 
Continental Association * ' except to permit vessels bringing 
powder into the colonies to carry away merchandise. Only 
defensive measures were adopted. These were heartily wel- 
comed. " You cannot conceive," one wrote, " what univer- 
sal joy diffused itself through every breast, and triumph in 
every countenance, on publication of the glorious resolu- 
tions of the Continental Congress." ^ Moderation was then 
acceptable to the public mind. While the popular party 
throughout the colonies were determined to assert their 
rights, and to do this jointly, they involuntarily shrank from 
revolution, even w^heii it was fairly upon them. 

The loyalists, in their habit of ascribing to the patriots 
aims which were indignantly disavowed, charged that Con- 
gress, in this second petition, treated the king with " the fal 
lacy, treachery, and deceit " which had characterized all its 
proceedings ; ^ and history, constructed from their point of 
view, treats its course as a piece of dissimulation.^ It is, 
however, certain that civil war, though it roused bitter 
hatred to the ministry, had not effaced the old affection for 
the mother country, and that the majority of the popular 
party still looked yearningly towards her. When the case 
was presented, that the next step must necessarily be revo- 
lution, with a separation of the empire into two peoples, with 
war between them as between two nations, the recoil in the 

(Life of John Jay, i. 3G) that the measure originated witli Mr. Jay. Governor 
Pcnn, in his examination before the House of Lords, said that the petition had 
been considered as an olive branch, and he had been complimented by his friends 
as the messenger of peace. — Philadelphia Evening Post, Feb. 20, 177G. 

1 Connecticut Historical Society Collections, ii. 237. 

2 General Gage uses these words. 

8 Adolphus, History of England, ii. 234. 



438 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

public mind was involuntary and powerful. This fidelity 
was honorable. One of the lessons of the late civil war is 
to make Americans more ai)prcciative of the nature of 
national life, and of the profound sentiment of country ; and 
they can now better understand the feelings of the founders 
of the Republic, when they were called upon to give up the 
old flag. 

The theory that the popular leaders. were playing a game 
of hypocrisy may be tested in the case of Washington, 
whose sterling patriotism was not more conspicuous than 
his irreproachable integrity. The New-York Provincial 
Congress, in an address to him (June 26, 1775), on his 
journey from Philadelphia to the American camp around 
Boston, say that accommodation with the mother country 
was " the fondest wish of each American soul." Washing- 
ton, in reply, pledged his colleagues and himself to use 
every exertion to reestablish peace and harmony. " When 
we assumed the soldier," he said, " we did not lay aside 
the citizen ; and we shall most sincerely rejoice with you 
in that happy hour when the establishment of American 
liberty on the most firm and solid foundations shall enable 
us to return to our private stations, in the bosom of a free, 
peaceful, and happy country." ^ There was no incompati- 
bility in the position of military leader of a great uprising 
with a desire to preserve the old political ties. When the 
Barons at Runnymede, surrounded l)y their armed retainers, 
wrested from King John the Great Charter, they meant not 
to renounce their allegiance, but simply to preserve the old 
government. Though an act of apparent rebellion, yet it 
was in tlic strictest sense an act of loyalty.^ So the popular 
leaders, in their attitude of armed, resistance, were loyal to 
what they conceived to be essential to American liberty. 
They were asserting the majesty of Constitutional Law 

1 The "London Chronicle" of Aiicj. 8, 1775, has tlie speech of the New-Yorfc 
Provincial Congress, and Uic reply of ^Vashint;•to^, of the 2Gth of June, 1775. 

2 Maurice, in his " Social Morality," p. 183. 



THE king's proclamation AND REVOLUTION. 439 

against those who would have destroyed it, and thus were 
more k)yal to the Constitution than was George III. There 
is really no ground on which justly to question the sincer- 
ity of declarations like those of Congress and Washington. 
The condition of things at this interesting point of time was 
stated precisely in a letter written by Franklin, and read 
in the House of Commons. " If yon flatter yourselves," 
he says, " with beating us into submission, you know 
noiihcr the people nor the country. The Congress . . . 
will wait the result of their last petition." ^ The word 
italicized by Franklin was pi'ophetic. The popular leaders 
said what they meant. Tliey aimed at a redress of griev- 
ances ; and the idea was quite general, of a Bill of Rights, 
or an American Constitution, embodying the conditions on 
which the integrity of the empire might be preserved. This 
was their last appeal for a settlement on such a basis. The 
Tory judgment on their course in again petitioning the king 
is tinctured with the injustice of this school in regard to 
the spirit and aim of the popular party and the integrity and 
sincerity of its leaders.^ 

It was now said that " several colonies continued to be 
much embarrassed between their respect for their old form 
of government and its officers and their regard for their 
freedom and the rights of human nature, which it had been 
long the avowed object of these forms and officers to abolish." ^ 



1 Sparks's Worlcs of Franklin, viii. 161. Sparks states that the letter, dated Oct. 3, 
1775, was probably addressed to David Hartlej', and was first printed in Vaughan's 
edition of Franklin's Works. Hartley was a member of the House of Commons, 
and read the letter in this body in 1775, a few days after receiving it; and again 
used it ia his speech of Dec. 5, 1777, which was printed in the " London General 
Advertiser," Jan. 23. 1778. In this speech he remarked as to the first reading: 
" You were then confident of having America under your feet, and despised every 
pro|>ositioii recommending peace and lenient measures." 

2 Rives' s Life of Madison, i. 103. 

3 The "Essex Gazette," July 21, 1775, under the date of New York. July 13, 
has the folloAving: — 

'• The people of Virghiia and some other American colonies continue to be much 
embarrassed between their respect to the ancient form of government, and officers 
which a<:cording to those forms were appointed to the administration of public 



440 THE RISE OF THE EEPUBLIC. 

The New-York Provincial Congress declined to i-efuse sup- 
plies to the British army : at the same time the mayor of 
New- York city and the Committee of Safety earnestly desired 
Governor Try on to continue his residence there, and he ireely 
visited the Continental camp of General Wooster, making 
inquiries as to tlie numbers of the men and their arms.^ 
The North-Carolina Provincial Congress pronounced it cruel 
to assert that they desired to cut off their connection with 
Great Britain. The South-Carolina committee informed 
Governor Campbell that they would insure to him the 
respect which they ever wished to show to the representative 
of their sovereign. Governors Dunmore of Virginia, Eden 
of Maryland, Franklin of New Jersey, and Penn of Penn- 
sylvania were recognized in their official capacity. Papers 
from several of these loyal officials, ending " God save the 
king," appear in the public prints by the side of the details 
of the progress of hostilities.^ 

It was regarded as important to confine the war to Massa- 

affairs, and their regard to tlieir o\^ii freedom and the most important rights and 
privileges of human nature, whicli it lias long been the avowed business of these 
forms and otflcers to take away and abolish. Instead of trying and punishing these 
ofBcers as traitors against the Constitution, the most horrid of all traitors, the respect 
shown them, and the attempts made to reconcile natural inconsistencies, are truly 
ridiculous, at the same time that they obstruct and have the most pernicious cftect on 
public aftairs. Lord Dunmore still continues to injure and insult the people of Vir- 
ginia with impunity." 

1 Connecticut Historical Collections, ii 278. 

2 The Governor of Virginia having taken up quarters on board a man-of-war, 
the Council and House of Burgesses, June 23, 1775, in a joint address, besought 
him to return to the capital. (Pennsylvania Evening Post, July 18 ) A Prochmia- 
tion of John Penn, Governor of Pennsylvania and Delaware, Oct 5, 1775, ends with 
"God save the king.'" (Ibid., Oct. 10, 1775 ) The correspondence between Governor 
Trj'on and Mayor Hicks and the committee of New York is in the '' Pennsylvania 
Evening Post" of Oct. 21, 1775; and that between Governor Campbell and the gen- 
eral committee of South Carolina, in the issue of Nov. 2, 1775. The letter of the 
committee is signed bj' Henry Laurens. The North Carolina Provincial Congress, 
consisting of delegates from forty-four counties and towns, in an address, on Sept. 
8, 1775, say: " We have been told that independence is our object: that we seek to 
shake off all connection with the parent State. Cruel suggestion! Do not all our 
professions, all our actions, uniformly contradict this?" ]\Iecklcnburg County was 
represented in this congress, and among the delegates two are named as having been 
present, May 20, 1775, when the alleged Declaration of Independence of this county 
was adopted. — Force's Archives, 4th Series, iii. 201. 



THE king's proclamation AND REVOLUTION. 441 

cliusetts, the operations in Canada being considered merely 
defensive. The great scene of the battle of Bunker Hill, 
with the sacrifice of Warren, lent its varied influence to the 
cause. It was a revelation of character that was felt through- 
out the war. It demonstrated that Americans would fight. 
While the battle was going on, a messenger arrived in tlie 
camp with the news that Congress had adopted the array, — 
had even ordered the purchase of military su])plies to be 
paid for out of the continental treasury, which, however, was 
directed to be kept secret. This messenger was also the 
bearer of the advice to Massachusetts to use the old charter. 
Though a disappointment to the patriots, who desired to 
form a government worthy of freemen, they nevertheless 
complied with the advice, therein exhibiting a spirit of 
subordination of the local feeling to the judgment of' Con- 
gress cliaracteristic of the time. " We are all submissive," 
wrote James Warren. A government was soon established. 

Congress reassembled on the 5th of September ; but 
so few of the members appeared that it adjourned to the 
18th, when it proceeded to business. The colony of Geor- 
gia was now fully represented. Its Provincial Congress, in 
declaring that all men were born free and equal and were 
entitled to the natural rights of mankind, accepted an idea 
thoroughly identified with the American cause ; and, in 
adoi)ting tho Association, it complied with the condition of 
admission to the Union. Its delegates differed widely in 
their politics. Noble Wimberly Jones had rendered large 
service to the cause, and continued its steadfast supporter ; 
the Reverend Dr. Zubly looked upon a republican govern- 
ment as little better than a government of devils,^ and soon 
found his proper place in the ranks of the loyalists. From 
this period the Union was called " The Thirteen United 
Colonies." 

Congress was anxiously waiting the fate of its second 
petition. Much was thought to depend on this. The key to 

1 Works of John Adams, ii. 469. 



442 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

tlie action of the popular leaders down to this time is Union ^ 
they aimed at such measures as would secure the coopera- 
tion of the people of thirteen colonies — it was hoped more 
than thirteen — in efforts to obtain a redress of grievances. 
Seemingly, the course of Congress was marked by hesitation 
and vacillation: one day a measure would be pressed, in 
order to the more vigorous prosecution of the war; the next 
day it was urged that nothing should be done to v/idcn the 
breach.^ Its debates concerned the important matters of 
forming local governments, creating a navy, opening the 
ports, dealing with the Tories, entering into foreign alliances, 
and declaring independence. It was the talk of Samuel 
Adams in private (September 24), that, if the "second 
petition to the king were rejected or neglected, or not 
answered and answered favorably, he would be for acting 
against Britain or Britons, as in open war against France 
or Frenchmen, — fit privateers, and take their ships any- 
where."^ 

In the course of the debates in Congress, Thomas Johnson 
of Maryland said (October 6) that he saw every day less 
and less prospect of reconciliation, but that he was not yet 
ready to render reconciliation impossible, for he dreaded the 
effect of such a stand on North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, 
Pennsylvania, and New York. " If," said he, " what we 
have done had been proposed two years ago, four colonies 
would not have been for it " : in sixteen months thirteen 
colonies had been brought to the position of armed resistance 
to the claims of Great Britain ; hence, he concluded " the 
line we have pursued is the line we ought to have pursued.'^ ^ 

1 John Adams says, in the iiumbei' of Novangliis in the "Essex Gazette" of 
Feb. 28, 1775: "The grand aphorism of the policy of the Whigs has been to unite 
the people of America and divide those of Great Britain. The reverse of this has 
been the maxim of the Tories: viz., to unite the people of Great Britain and divide 
those of America. All the movements, marches, and counter-inarches of both 
parties, on both sides of the Atlantic, may be reduced to the one or the other of these 
rules." 

2 Letter of Samuel Ward, Life, p. 324. 

8 Works of John Adams, ii. 428. * Ibid., 459. 



THE king's proclamation and revolution. 443 

The simultaneous manifestations in various quarters of the 
state of the public mind on the subject of independence 
illustrate the force of this remark. In Hanover County, 
Virginia, a person who had said that the country aimed at 
independence more than opposition to Parliamentary taxa- 
tion, was compelled by the county committee to confess his 
sorrow for such an offence.^ In Pennsylvania, the committee 
of Chester County being charged with aiming at independ- 
ence, they declared that they held in horror so pernicious 
an idea. 2 In South Carolina, tlie Provincial Congress in- 
structed its delegates to refuse their consent to any plan 
of confederation. In North Carolina, the 'Assembly, the 
County Convention, and the Provincial Congress averred, 
with fervent expressions of loyalty, that reconciliation was 
their object ; and the Provincial Congress, after all the 
members had (Aug. 23, 1775) signed a test containing a 
declaration of allegiance to the king, voted (September 4) 
that the plan of a general confederation " was not at present 
eligible," but that " the present Association ought to be 
relied upon for bringing about a reconciliation with the 
])arent state." -^ It certainly was the jjart of wisdom in 
the Congi'css to heed pul)lic opinion and to wait. A high 
authority exi)resses the judgment that " nothing could have 
been wiser, at that time, than moderation."'^ 

There was a pressure on Congress to authorize the for- 
mation of local governments. A request of this nature was 
presented from New Hampshire, which was experiencing the 
intoloralilc evils of an absence of authority, and asked per- 
mission " to regulate its internal police." The two delegates 
in Congress (October 2) suggested, in a joint letter to Matthew 
Thornton, tliat the convulsed state of the colony should be 
represented to Franklin, Lynch, and Harrison, a committee 
appointed to visit the camp around Boston, and the absolute 

1 Force's Ai-L-liives, 4tli Series, iii. 744. 

2 Ibid., 774. This -(vas Sept. 25, 1775. 

3 Ibitl., 188. "This was Aiif,^ 24, 1775. 

* Kamsay's History of the United States, i. 214. 



444 THE MSE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

necessity urged of forming a government ; they likewise 
laid before Congress (October 18) their instructions on this 
point. Congress, however, hesitated to give the desired 
advice.^ Another request of this nature came from beyond 
the AUeglianies. Pioneers, among them Daniel Boone, 
having satisfied the Indians for the territory now Kentucky, 
founded four towns. They elected representatives to a 
House of Delegates, who agreed on a form of government, 
and then, by a memorial to Congress, asked that theii 
colony, Transylvania, might be admitted one of the United 
Colonies. The agent who bore this memorial gives at much 
length the details of his interviews with several of the 
members. He states the objection of the two Adamses. 
They held that there would be an impropriety in Congress 
engaging to protect a people who defied the king's procla- 
mation ; " for it would be looked upon as a confirmation 
of that independent spirit with which Congress was daily 
reproached." ^ Although no members were more decided on 
the question of independence, yet this statement is con- 
clusive as to their views at this time. No measure was taken 
in October designed to alter the political situation of the 
colonies. 

In the mean time Richard Penn hastened to England with 
the second petition. The king was now continually occupied 
with American affairs. He directed that General Gage 
should be ordered " instantly to come over " on account of 



1 It was not until tlie 'iOtli of October that this subject was referred to a com- 
mittee, consisting of Jlessrs. Itutledge, John Adams, Ward, Lee, and Sherman. 
On that day tlic New-IIampshirc delegates wrote to their constituents: "We some 
time since made a motion for the regulation of our civil government, and this day a 
committee was appointed to consider the motion and report thereon. Could have 
wished that a petition from our Congress, setting forth all the reasons, had been trans- 
mitted us, which would have helped the matter much." 

2 The interview between Mr Hogg, the agent, and the Adamses, took place on 
the 24th of October. (John Adams's AVorks, ii. 4-30. ) He says : " I showed them our 
memorial, to convince them that we did not pretend to throwoft'our allegiance to the 
king, but intended to acknowledge his sovereignty, whenever he should think us 
worthy of his regard. The}' were pleased Avith our memorial, and thought it very 
proper." This memorial is in Force's Ai-chives, 4th Series, iv. 5-ii. 



THE king's proclamation AND REVOLUTION. 445 

the battle of Buiilver Hill, tliouglit Admiral Graves ought to 
be recalled from Boston " for doing nothing," ^ and completed 
the arrangements for the employment of Hanoverians in 
America. Impatient at tlie delay of the Cal)inet in acting on 
the proclamation agreed upon, he pnt this in train by order- 
ing one to be framed, and submitted August 18 to Lord 
North, and fixed the day for its promulgation. He was con- 
firmed in his extreme views by General Haldimand, fresh 
from America, who reported that " nothing but force could 
bring the colonies to reason," and that it would be danger- 
ous to give ear to any propositions they might submit. The 
king was convinced that it would be better " totally to aban- 
don " the colonies than " to admit a single shadow " of their 
doctrines.^ Five days after penning these words, he issued 
(August 23) a proclamation for suppressing rebellion and 
sedition. It charged, that many subjects in divers parts 
of the colonies in North America, forgetting their allegi- 
ance, and after obstructing the lawful commerce of loyal 
subjects carrying it on, had proceeded to open and avowed 
rebellion, and that this rebellion had been promoted by the 
counsels of divers wicked and desperate persons within the 
realm of England ; and commanded all civil and military 
officers, and all loyal subjects, to use their utmost endeavors 
to suppress this rebellion, and to give full information of all 
persons corresponding with the persons in arms in North 
America, in order to bring them to condign punishment. 
This proclamation, unlike Lord North's plan, ignored the 

1 Donne's Correspondence of George III., i. 257. 

2 Ibid., i. 263. Aug. 18, 1775, when the king wrote to Lord North: "There 
has been much delay in framing a proclamation declaring the conduct of the Amer- 
icans rebellious, and warning persons from corresponding with them. ... I have 
directed Lord Suffolk to have it shown to you." The king's words given in the text 
are from the letter. They were accurately stated in the "Philadelphia Evening 
Post" of Nov. 16, 1775: "A private letter, by Captain Collins, lately arrived from 
London, says that on the 19th of August General Haldimand was closeted with His 
Majesty two hours, giving him a state of the American colonics; and that, in the 
course of the conversation. His Majesty expressed his resolution in these memorable 
words: ' I am unalterably determined, at every hazard and at the risk of every con- 
sequence, to compel the colonies to absolute submissif^n.' " 



446 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

colonies as political units. It is levelled against individuals 
in rebellion, and all within the realm who should aid them. 
At that period, Burke wrote of the king, " Nothing can 
equal tlie case, composure, and even gayety of the great 
disposer of all in this lower orb ";^ of his minister, " I am 
told by one who has lately seen Lord North, that he has 
never seen him or anybody else in higher spirits";^ and 
that " the violent measures were fairly adopted by a majority 
of individuals of all ranks, professions, or occupations in 
this country."^ 

It was to such parties that Eichard Penn tendered the 
American olive branch, or the second petition. He handed 
a copy of it to Lord Dartmouth on the 21st of August, 
and named the 23d as the day for the formal presenta- 
tion of the original ; but on that day the king issued his 
proclamation, which six days later was read by the heralds 
in Palace Yard, Westminster, and Temple Bar, — also at 
the Royal Exchange by one of the Lord Mayor's officers. 
On the first day of September Lord Dartmouth received the 
original petition, but Penn was not asked a single question 
relative to American affairs. The king would not see him. 
On being pressed for an answer. Lord Dartmouth replied, 
" that, as His Majesty did not receive the petition on the 
throne, no answer would be given." On the 22d he wrote 
to General Howe, who (Aug. 2, 1775) superseded General 
Gage as the commander of the British army, tliat there was 
" no room left for any other consideration but that of pro- 
ceeding against the twelve associated colonics in all respects 
with the utmost rigor, as the open and avowed enemies of 
the state." 4 

Intelligence of the fate of tlie second petition reached 
America when the public mind was stirred by profound 
impulses, and " anxiety possessed every heart." It came 

^ Correspondence of Edmund Burke, ii. 41. 

2 Ibid., as. 3 Ibid., OS. 

4 l""orce's Archives, 4th Scries, iii. 773. 



THE king's proclamation AND REVOLUTION.- 447 

by an arrival at Philadelpliia on the 31st of October ;i and 
the city newspapers of the next day contained the king's 
proclamation. They also had the statement, that ten thou- 
sand Hanoverians were about to join the British forces in 
America, and that the Elector of Hanover had a rescript 
from George III. for the subsidies to embark for their desti- 
nation. And on this day an express from Washington sup- 
plied a lurid commentary on the king's proclamation, in the 
news of the burning of Falmouth. These were truly mo- 
mentous advices, such as leave a mark in the progress 
of events. 

Congress, through the month of October, had debated, in 
committee of the whole, the state of the United Colonies. 
On receiving the advices, members who had held back were 
ready to act with decision. " Thank God!" Samuel Ward, 
a mem])cr from Rhode Island, now wrote, " tlic happy day 
which I have long wished for is at length arrived : the South- 
ern colonies no longer entertain jealousies of the Northern ; 
they no longer look hack to Great Britain." One member 
very jealous of New England, addressing him as Brother 
Rebel, said: "We have got a sufficient answer to our peti- 
tion : I want nothing more, but am ready to declare ourselves 
independent." Ward continued: "My anxiety is at an end: 
I feel a calm, cheerful satisfaction in having one great and 
just object in view, and the means of obtaining it certainly, 
by the Divine blessing, in our hands." ^ Samuel Adams 
had now a majority with him ready to take a decisive and 
irrevocable step forward. This was the adoption, on the 

1 A paragraph in the newspapers, dated Philadelphia, November 1, announces the 
arrival of two vessels with advices from London to August 2G, with the following: 
" It is reported that no answer has yet been given, nor will any be given, to the 
petition of the Continental Congress, as it is thought beneath the dignity of the 
government to acknowledge an assembly which has no constitutional or legal exist- 
ence." This news was soon authenticated by a card having the signature of Charles 
Thomson. Secretary of Congress. The "Pennsylvania Journal" of November 1 
printed the king's proclamation. 

2 GannncU's Life of Samuel Ward, 323. This letter bears date November 2. It 
says that the advices the two ships brought, naming the Proclamation, were of im- 
mense service to the patriots. 



448 . THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

report of the committee^ to whom had been referred the 
memorial of New Hampshire, of a recommendation (Novem- 
ber 3) to the Provincial Convention of that colony, " to call 
a full and free representation of the people and the represen- 
tatives, if they think it necessary, and establish such a form 
of government as in their judgment will best promote the 
happiness of the joeople, and most effectually secure peace 
and good order in the province during the continuance of 
the dispute between Great Britain and the colonies." A 
people are here recommended to exercise their inherent 
right of forming a government. The next day, Congress, 
on the report of the committee, gave similar advice to 
South Carolina, with the important addition. of making pro- 
vision for an army to defend the colony at " the continental 
expense." This was an earnest that the combined strength 
of the colonies should be used for their defence, — the germ 
of the provision in the Constitution which guaranties to 
every State protection and a republican government. The 
advice to these colonies gave the American interpretation to 
vital political principles, hitherto hardly more than abstrac- 
tions. It was revolution, for it contemplated a change in 
the base of the sovereignty. Its friends so understood it, 
and were ready and anxious to make the recommendation 
general. Those who, in the hope of reconciliation, still 
hesitated, so regarded it, and pronounced it the first step 
towards independence. Indeed, the popular leaders of 
largest insight now shaped measures with a view to a 
Republic. Samuel Adams, the Palinurus of the Revolu- 
tion, ^ — if there was one, — now wrote, as he labored in 

1 The report of the committee was made on the 2cl of November. On the 3d 
Congress appointed a committee of five, — Messrs. Harrison, Bullock. Hooper, Chase, 
and Samuel Adams, — to take into consideration certain papers and letters relating to 
South Carolina. 

2 Jefferson said : " If there ever was any Palinnrus to the Revolution, Samuel 
Adams was the man. Indeed, in the Eastern States, for a year or two after it began, 
he was truly the man of the Revolution" (Randall's Jeflferson, i. 182.) Samuel 
Adams's letters, freely cited from time to time in the text, give his position in his own 
words. He was now urging on Congress the measure of independence. The memoir of 



THE KIXG'S proclamation AND REVOLUTION, 449 

the committees, and as if under a spell of prophecy : " Every 
moment should be improved to some serious purpose. It is 
the age of George III. ; and, to do justice to our most gra- 
cious king, I will affirm it is my opinion that his councils 
and administration will necessarily produce the grandest 
r(}volutions the world has ever seen. The wheels of Provi- 
dence seem to be in their swiftest motion. Events succeed 
each other so rapidly, that the most industrious and able 
politicians can scarcely improve them to the full purposes for 
wliich tliey seem to be designed. You must send your best 
men here: therefore recall me from this service. Men of 
moderate abilities, especially when weakened by age, are not 
fit to be employed in founding empires." ^ This letter, writ- 

him, written by James Sullivan, a Revolutionary patriot, and printed in the " Boston 
Chronicle," Oct. 10, 1803, has the following remark: "There is no doubt among his 
intnnate friends, and indeed it is well known to his confidential compatriots, that he 
was the first man in America who contemplated a separation of the colonies from the 
mother country." A memoir of him by Samuel Adams Wells, MS., has the follow- 
ing: "It was thought during the Revolution, and it is still said, that he first con- 
ceived and dared to announce the grand design of independence. We believe this to 
be true; but the time when he had fully determined, and was willing to avow this 
opinion, is a question of some magnitude, and cannot be accurately determined." 
(p 14-3.) A little further on (p 154), Mr. Wells says: " We doubt not that he went 
to the Congress of 1775. fully prepared for the adoption of that decisive measure." 
The sentiment expressed in his letters harmonizes perfectly with this view. He was 
then ready to advocate a step which down to the day of Lexington he was in the habit 
of disavowing privately and publicly, but which he had long thought the colonies 
would be forced to adopt by the aggressive policy of the British administration. 

1 This is taken from a letter dated Philadelphia, Nov. 4, 1775, addressed to 
James Warren, the President of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress. There are 
two letters of this date: one mentioning the vote on New Hampshire only, the 
other the vote on South Carolina also ; probably the one being written in the morn- 
ing and the other in the evening of this day. They have not been printed. The 
following are extracts : — 

"I wish I was at liberty to communicate to you some of our proceedings; but I am 
restrained ; ami, though it is painful to me to keep secrets from a few confldential friends, 
I am resolved that I will not violate my honor. I may venture to tell you one of our 
resolutions, which, in the nature of it, must be immediately made public ; and that is, to 
recommend to our sister colony, New Hampshire, to exercise government in such a form 
as they shall judge necessary for the preservation of peace and good order, during the 
continuance of the present contest with Britain. This I would not have you mention 
abroad till you see it published, or hear it publicly talked of. The government of the 
New-England colonies, I suppose, will soon be nearly on the same footing; and I am of 
opinion that it will not be long before every colony will see the necessity of setting up 
government within themselves, for reasons that appear to me to be obvious." 

" I confess I am giving my frienil as much information as I dare of things which are 

29 



450 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

ten on the morning after the vote relative to New Hampshire, 
and when the writer was maturing the thorough action with 
respect to South Carolina, and the letter just cited of Samuel 
Ward, who was on the committee who reported the advice 
to New Hampshire, penned on the day before this vote, 
reveal the inner springs of momentous political action, and 
the spirit in which the popular leaders crossed the Rubicon. 
In this action they accepted the fact and laid out the work 
of revolution. They no longer contemplated, in their aims 
and plans, a union in unnatural conformity with allegiance 
to the crown, but wholly an American union, identified with 
a new national power. 

Congress now assumed a bolder tone, and went forward 
steadily, with great deference to the common statements, 
yet leading, not following, popular sentiment. In passing 
judgment on its measures, it ought to be borne in mind, 
that it had entered an untrodden field, which presented 
obstacles at every step onward, — but that the path it laid 
out, which was strictly kept to, at least at this early stage, 
led to the greatest political result in human history. Each 
successive step might not always have been the wisest ; but, 
from the time it gave these vital recommendations to New 
Hampshire and South Carolina, it took no step backwards. 
It put forth no more disclaimers of a purpose of independ- 
ence. It sought no longer to confine hostilities to Massa- 
chusetts. It was for war in earnest, — for offensive war, as 
though it were war against France and Frenchmen ; and 
this was its injunction to the colonies. It advised (Novem- 
ber 4) South Carolina to seize and destroy British ships-of- 
war, and to resist all attempts to occupy Charleston. It 
framed (November 9) a new pledge of secrecy, which each 
member was required to sign. It took steps (November 

of such a nature as that they cannot long be kept secret, and therefore, I suppose, it 
never was intended they should be. I mention them, however, in confidence that you 
will not publish them. I wish I was at liberty to tell you many of the transactions of 
this body, but I am restrained by the ties of honor ; and, though it is painful to ine, 
you know, to keep secrets, I will not violate my honor to relieve myself or please my 
friend." 



THE king's proclamation AND REVOLUTION. 451 

17) to create a naval code. It raised a committee (Novem- 
ber 29) to correspond with foreign powers. ^ It declared 
(December 4) that it would be very dangerous to the welfare 
of America, if any colony separately should petition the 
King or Parliament ; and the same day it advised the inhab- 
itants of Virginia to resist by force the arbitrary measures 
of their governor, Lord Dunmore, and recommended its 
Convention to call a full and free representation of the 
people and form a local government. These votes are in 
marked contrast to the votes of the preceding June. There 
had been progress. The determined tone of Congress is 
seen in its answer to the king's proclamation. In this paper 
it was declared, in the name of the people of the colonies, 
and " by authority, according to the purest maxims of 
representation, derived from them," tliat the punishment 
that might be inflicted on the supporters of the cause of 
American liberty should be retaliated on the supporters of 
ministerial oppression. 

The news that caused " the daybreak of revolution" ^ in 
Independence Hall produced a profound impression on the 
popular heart. The public prints abound with evidences of 
the rising spirit. One, on reading the " late most extraordi- 
nary proclamation," gave expression to his feelings in the 
following verses : — 

"Rebels, — avaunt the inglorious name! 
To those who burn with virtue's flame, — 
The hero, whose undaunted soul 
Spurns haughty B 's rude control, 

And mocks the tyrant's nod. 
Usurper, 'tis in vain thy sway: 
True Courage deigns not to obey. 

Or bow beneath the rod. 



1 Nov. 29, 1775. Resolved, "That a committee of five be appointed for the 
sole purpose of corresponding with our friends in Great Britain, Ireland, and other 
parts of the world, and that they lay their correspondence before Congress, when 
directed. " Mr Harrison, Dr. Franklin, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Dickinson, and Mr. 
Jay were appointed the committee. — Secret Journals, ii. 5. 

2 Bancroft, viii. 137. 



452 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

True Courage, roused by Honor's laws, 

Will perish in her country's cause; 

Her claiu\, the heaven-born rights which Freedom gave: 

Though worlds against her league, she will not dnh a slave." 1 

Every newspaper circulating these verses was an American 
minstrel stirring the blood by his song. 

The idea of independence was now boldly advocated by the 
press. One wrote : " We expect soon to break off all con- 
nection with Britain, and to form a Grand Republic of the 
American United Colonies, which will by the blessing of 
Heaven soon work out our salvation, and perpetuate the lib- 
erties, increase the wealth, the power, and the glory of this 
Western World." ^ Another wrote : " When the throne of 
independence rises before the eyes of the admiring world, 
when our seas and our harbors are thronged with ships from the 
remotest corners of the earth, when our farmers are princes 
and our merchants kings, what conscious pleasure must 
be ours ! And what praise shall be given us who are engaged 
in all the danger and heat of the day ! " ^ The voices of the 
dead in the battle-fields, and the valor of the living, were 
summoned to nerve the people to worthy effort for tlie cause. 
A relation of the deeds of a lad of sixteen at Bunker Hill, 
who fired all his cartridges and then began afresh with the 
cartridges of a comrade slain at his side, closes, — 

" Dear Liberty! thou dost our youths inspire 
With more than Grecian, more than Roman fire." 

Private letters evince the same resolute spirit. " The 
king's silly proclamation," wrote James Warren, " will put 
an end to petitioning : movements worthy your august body 
are expected, — a declaration of independence, and treaties 
with foreign powers." * Joseph Hawley wrote : " The eyes 
of all the continent are fastened on your body, to see whether 

1 Pennsylvania Evening Post, Nov. 16, 1775. 

2 Essex Gazette, Nov. 2-3, 1775. 

3 This is from a piece entitled " A Reverie," by a soldier, dated Dec. 11, 1775. 
■* James Wa-ren to Samuel Adams, cited in Bancroft, viii. 136. 



THE king's proclamation AND REVOLUTION. 453 

jon on this occasion act with firmness and integrity, and 
witli the spirit and despatch which our situation calls for. 
It is time for your body to fix on periodical annual elections, — 
nay, to form into a parliament of two houses." ^ Abigail 
Adams wrote : " I could not join to-day in the petitions of 
our worthy pastor for a reconciliation between our no longer 
parent state, but tyrant state, and these colonies. Let us 
separate." ^ George Mason expressed the feeling roused in 
Virginia, when, at a later day, reverting to these occur- 
rences, he wrote : " When the last dutiful and humble peti- 
tion from Congress received no other answer than declaring 
us rebels and out of the king's protection, I from that mo- 
ment looked forward to a revolution and independence as 
the only means of salvation." ^ 

The disclosures of opinion in the halls of Congress and 
among the people, together with the subsequent recollec- 
tions of the actors' in these events,* fix the time when the 



1 Joseph Hawley to Samuel Adams, Nov. 12, 1775. MS. 

2 Abigail Adams to John Adams, Nov. 12, 1775. Letters, 61. 

3 George Mason, Oct. 2, 1778, in Virginia Historical Register, vol. ii. 28. 

* Sparks, in the valuable uote entitled "American Independence," in the second 
volume of the Writings of Washington, says: " It is not easy to determine at what 
precise date the idea of independence was first entertained by the principal persons 
in America." (p. 496.) Samuel Adams, after the events of the 19th of April, 1775, 
was prepared to advocate it. (Seep. 449.) Members of the Provincial Congress 
of New Hampshire were of the .same opinion. ( See p. 422. ) President Dwight (Travels 
in New England and New York. i. 159) says: '' In the month of July, 1775, 1 urged, 
in conversation with several gentlemen of great respectability, firm Whigs, and my 
intimate friends, the importance, and even the necessity, of a declaration of independ- 
ence on the part of the colonies, . . . but found them disposed to give me and my 
arguments a hostile and contemptuous, instead of a cordial reception. . . . These 
gentlemen may be considered as the representatives of the great body of thinking 
men of this country." In the note of Sparks, just cited, are embodied the recollec- 
tions of IMadison, Jay, and others, and the contemporary statements of Franklin and 
Penn. They are in harmonj- with the statements and quotations in the text, and 
sustain the judgment of Dr. Ramsay (History of South Carolina, i. 164), who says: 
" Till the rejection of the second petition of Congress, a reconciliation with the 
mother country was the unanimous wish of Americans generally." 

The " ^Massachusetts Spy" of Feb. 2, 1776, contains a piece entitled "Remark- 
able Events m the Year 1775." The twentieth and last is the following: — 

" XX. The colonies at last were roused to a proper sense of the injuries they had 
sustained from the usurpations of the British Parliament, from the insolence of the 



454 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

mo\emeiit advanced from the simple aim of a redress of 
grievances. What Roj^al Instructions were to the organiza- 
tion of the popular party, what the Tea Act was to Ameri- 
can union, what the Regulating Act was to association, 
the Proclamation was to revolution. Then the inspiring- 
sentiment of union became identified with the still more in- 
spiring sentiment of nationality. Then the popular leaders 
recognized the mission of that generation to found a repub- 
lic. The thought lifted them up to the heights of their 
cause, strengthening their convictions of its justice, deepen- 
ing the faith that they were co-workers with Providence, and 
investing their action with the highest moral dignity. 

But, however great became the influence of the religious 
element over the minds of the popular leaders, it never led 
them into the extravagance of fanaticism. They kept in 
mind the fact that Providence works by human means. They 
estimated the magnitude of the task before them. It was 
easy to suggest an American commonwealth, or republic ; 
it was not difficult to speculate on what might follow from 
the establishment of such a polity ; it was pleasant to in- 
dulge in visions of the rising glory of America : but it was 
quite another thing to devise the means of achieving the 
grand object of these aspirations. It required great insight 
to determine the steps which the state of public opinion in 
thirteen different, and in many respects widely diverse, com- 
munities would sanction, bring them to act in concert, and 
thus reach the condition of success. A plan mentioned by 
some who were in favor of separation was for the people of 
the several colonies to abrogate all authority under the crown, 
and form local governments ; then to agree on a Constitution 
for the United Colonies, and make foreign alliances ; and then 
to issue a declaration of independence. It was urged that 
the people who estal)lished such governments would never 



ministry, tlie obstinacy and bloody-niindedncss of the liing, and the inhumanity of 
their bretliren in Great Britain ; and began to . ... as the only means that could 
BtMjure peace, liberty, and safety to America." 



THE king's proclamation AND REVOLUTION. 455 

give them up, but would range themselves permanently on 
the side of independence. The party who looked upon the 
measure of independence as ruinous, appreciated the strength 
of this movement, and sought to secure to their side the local 
Assemblies ; and such for a time was their success, that six 
months elapsed before a majority in Congress would recom- 
mend all the colonies to abrogate the royal authority, or 
before the popular leaders could make independence a party 
question. 

These six months constitute a great period in American 
history, and in the history of humanity. Then a free people, 
in the unrestrained exercise of its convictions on political 
affairs, moved steadily forward to the realization of the idea 
of an American Republic, — an idea which more and more 
impressed itself on their minds, and is recognized as great 
by the civilized world. 



CHAPTER XL 

How THE People of the United Colonies by the Declakation 
OF Independence decreed their Existence as a Nation com- 
posed OP Free and Independent States. 

November and December, 1775, and to July, 1776. 

The course of events, after the popular leaders accepted the 
work of revolution, created a desire for independence and 
developed a sentiment of nationality. When the colonies 
had agreed to join in dissolving the connection with Great 
Britain, and had so instructed their representatives, they, 
in Congress assembled, voted that these colonies were free 
and independent States, and by the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence announced to the world that they had assumed 
a separate station among the powers of the earth : where- 
upon the people, in public meetings and by their general 
assemblies, ratified the Declaration, and pledged themselves 
to maintain it with their fortunes and their lives. Thus they 
decreed their existence as a nation. 

The king, in a speech from the throne (Oct. 26, 1775), 
declared that the war, on the part of the colonists, was 
" manifestly carried on for the establishment of an Ameri- 
can empire." He stated, that, to put an end to the disorders 
in the colonies, he had increased the naval establishment 
and land forces, and was in treaty with foreign nations. He 
recommended the appointment of commissioners with large 
powers for the purpose of granting pardons to such of " the 
unhappy and deluded multitude " as might be convinced of 
their error by the display of arms.^ The House of Lords, 
in their address in reply, heartily approved the decisive use 

1 The King's Speech is in the "Pennsylvania Evening Post" of Jan. 9 1776. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 457 

of arms, yet could not sufficiently admire His Majesty's 
benevolent proposition relative to pardon. The House of 
Commons more than echoed the fierce words of the king 
in characterizing the colonial proceedings as the wicked 
pretences of ambitious and traitorous men, which had led 
unhappy fellow-subjects to set up the standard of rebellion ; 
but they heard with gratitude " the declaration of the father 
of his people " of his design to pardon. 

Important changes were made in the cabinet. Lord 
George Germain was appointed, in place of Lord Dart- 
mouth, head of the American department. His speech 
on the penal measures ^ embodied the spirit of hostility to 
popular rights that animated the ruling classes. This im- 
j)ortant position was the reward. His single aim, as a 
legislator, had been to assimilate the policy of America to 
that of England ; his single word, as minister, was force. 
He entered (Nov. 10, 1775) upon his duties at the very 
time when the people whom he would not have allowed 
to meddle with politics were advised by Congress to form 
governments. The other appointments which the king now 
made were of the class of violent men, haters of American 
ideas. His course, however, was popular. It was sustained 
by heavy majorities in Parliament, while public opinion was 
expressed in loyal addresses. " No arts," wrote Gibbon, 
" no management whatsoever, have been used to procure 
the addresses which fill the gazette." ^ 

In the picture of the times, these extreme measures do 
not stand out in connestion with the progress of events in 
America, in the relation of proximate cause and effect, with 
the distinctness of prior measures of the ministry ; yet the 
popular leaders could hardly have spared one of the terrible 
denunciations of King, Lords, and Commons, or the appoint- 
ment of the violent Lord Germain. They were all needed, 
and did good service in the patriot cause, as accounts of them 

1 See above, page 345. 

2 Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, 270. Letter to J. Holroyd, Oct. 14, 1775. 



458 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

circulated in the newspapers.^ They found their way into 
the Httle towns in the forests beyond tlie Alleghanies, as well 
as into the fiourisliing municipalities along the Atlantic 
coast, — in which probably a far larger proportion of the 
people were taking an active part in politics than ever be- 
fore, in any country, shared in the direction of pul^lic affairs. 
The key of their action was fidelity to the decisions of the 
General Congress. The work of this body may be summed 
up in a single sentence: while it accepted, after an American 
interpretation, the continuity of the body of English liberties, 
or of English constitutional law, it resisted the assimilation 
of American political life to the English model. In doing 
this, it said, "Our cause is just"; and it was pronounced 
a Christian duty to defend it. 

Congress also said, "Our union is perfect" ; and the re- 
mark was made in the face of differences of long standing 
between the colonies relative to jurisdiction, which even the 
common peril could not induce them to reconcile. New 
York and New Hampshire were on the verge of war about 
the territory now Vermont, and Connecticut and Pennsyl- 
vania about the Wyoming settlement ; and Maryland and 
Virginia had sharp passages with regard to current politics.^ 
Then there was the traditional jealousy of New England, 
which, if not general, was mischievous. The cause had also 

1 A captured despatch of Lord George Germain, dated Dec. 23, 1775, addressed 
to Governor Eden, of Maryland, was printed in the " Pennsylvania Evening Post" of 
April 23, 1776. It stated that an armament of seven regiments, and a fleet, were in 
readiness to operate in the Southern colonies. 

2 Galloway, in his " Candid Examination of the Mutual Claim of Great Pjritain 
and the Colonies," New York, 1775, urged that the colonies, " in respect to each other, 
are so many perfect and independent societies, destitute of any political connection"; 
and he seconded amotion made by Mr Ross in the Congress of 1774, that Massachu- 
setts " should be left to her own discretion with respect to government and justice." 
(John Adams's Works, ix. 349.) As to the controversies between the colonies, he 
says: " Disputes bet^veen Pennsylvania and Maryland began, and would have ended 
in civil war, had not the authority of the state interposed. Similar disputes have 
existed between New York and Connecticut, New York and New Jersey, and still 
subsist between New York and New Hampshire, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, 
and Pennsylvania and Virginia, all arising from the uncertainty of their boundaries 
and right to the soil." 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 459 

a powerful internal enemy in the Tories, who denounced 
the Congress and its measures, and grew more arrogant, 
bitter, and bold, as they saw British armies and fleets ap- 
pearing in America to fight on their side. And the popular 
party were very far from being agreed as to what should be 
the next step. In saying the union was perfect, therefore. 
Congress could mean only that the colonies were united in 
the determination to resist aggressions on their rights, and 
in demanding a redress of grievances. 

Ten years had elapsed since the course of events devel- 
oped a public opinion in favor of union, and one year since 
this opinion was embodied in a " Continental Association." 
Tlie union, in common speech, was pronounced indissoluble. 
It attained the efficiency of organic life and system through 
the General Congress, and the local committees of safety, 
inspection, and correspondence. These committees were 
charged with important duties, and especially with the duty 
of securing an observance of the Association and the decrees 
of Congress. Hence, at this time, there had arisen what 
was termed the Government of Committees, universally 
regarded only as a bridge to carry the people safely over 
to the goal of regularly established authority. 

It was said that Congress had " the supreme authority 
over the continent," ^ and was " held in the liighest venera- 
tion imaginable by all ranks and orders of men" : ^ of course 
the Tories were an exception. The popular party regarded 
Congress as the public authority directing the general 
concerns of thirteen communities united to promote their 
general welfare, and especially for the national object of 
wielding the combined strength for the defence of their 
rights. It was proceeding, in external affairs, or in matters 
of peace and war, as though " The United Colonies " were 
one political power. A common banner waved over them. 

1 The Man-land Council, April 19, 1776. Force's Archives, 4th Series, iv. 983. 

2 Penn's evidence before the House of Lords, Nov. 10, 1776: in the "Pennsj'l. 
yania Evening Post" of Feb. 20, 1776. 



460 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

Thus the party stood on union, when union had become the 
portal of nationaUty, 

This fact of union inspired the patriots with enthusiasm, 
as, with arms in their hands, and the conviction that their 
cause was just, they demanded of hitherto invincible Eng- 
land a redress of grievances. The military events down to 
November, 1775, strengthened their confidence in their 
ability to defend themselves ; but the war from November 
to July proved of a more checkered cast. In Massachusetts, 
Washington won his first triumph in the revolutionary 
struggle in forcing the British army to evacuate Boston. In 
Virginia, the provincial militia were victorious (Dec. 9, 1775) 
in the famous battle of the Great Bridge. In North Caro- 
lina, the Tories were defeated (Feb. 27, 1776) in the hard 
fight at Moore's Creek. In South Carolina, a British fleet 
was repulsed (June 28, 1776) in an attack on Charleston ; 
and Manly and his associates roused great exultation by 
captures (December, 1775) on the ocean. On the other 
hand, the brave Montgomery fell (Dec. 31, 1775) before 
Quebec. Dunmore burned Norfolk (January, 1776). Clin- 
ton invaded North Carolina. In New York, Carleton, in the 
flush of triumph, advanced (June) from Canada; and while 
the Indians sounded their war-whoop along the frontier, the 
Howes, with an army and fleet, approached the city. Hostile 
cannon almost within the hearing of Congress served as a 
reminder of the reality and nearness of the danger. The 
force which Washington had to meet these invasions was 
entirely inadequate ; and at one time his immediate com- 
mand was reduced to eight thousand men. 

While these scenes of war were occurring, and the highest 
hopes were followed by the keenest disappointments, the 
popular leaders of clear vision pressed independence as 
the next and only worthy step. The measure was urged 
as necessary to insure permanency to the civil and religious 
institutions of the colonies, — as essential to their material 
prosperity, in order to secure fair scope for the industrial 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 461 

energies of the land, — as vital to the expansion of American 
ideas over the continent, and to the creation of an opening 
for the spread of the Gospel, — as the only escape from 
tyranny, and the only guaranty of that government which is 
" an ordinance of Heaven to restrain the usurpations of 
wicked men, to secure to all the enjoyment of their natural 
rights, and to promote the highest political interests and 
happiness of society." It was urged that independence 
" was the path of empire, glory, liberty, and peace," ^ and 
that labor in such a cause was labor on the side of Prov 
idcncc. " The Almighty," said Chief-Justice Drayton, of 
South Carolina, from the bench, " created America to be 
independent of Great Britain : to refuse our labors in this 
divine work is to refuse to be a great, a free, a pious, and a 
happy people." 2 

This citation illustrates the way in which a sentiment of 
nationality instinctively mingled in political utterances with 
the idea of independence, — or the idea that the colonies 
ought not only to cast off the authority of Great Britain, but 
to be a political unit, a nation. This sentiment was minis- 
tered to by the physical characteristics of the country : a 
vast, connected, and fertile land ; the absence of impassable 
barriers between the several sections ; a climate uniting 
the productions of the torrid and the temperate zones ; 
majestic rivers inviting inland communication ; an imperial 
line of coast, stimulating maritime enterprise. As the 
thoughtful reflected on the resources of this magnificent 
country, it seemed to them that the Almighty had formed it 
for the abode of a people that should stand pre-eminent in the 
world. But their ideal of what should constitute a country 
was not simply hills and valleys, land and water, but 
spiritual things as well ; and as they mused on the estab- 

1 The citations are from what purports to be an Address of an Honest, Sensible, 
and Spirited Farmer to an Assembly of his Neighbors, on entering the Continental 
Service, printed in the " Pennsylvania Journal " of Feb. 28, 1776, and copied into 
the "Boston Gazette" of March 25. 

2 Charge at the Court of General Sessions, April 23, 1776. 



462 THE EISE OF THE EEPUBLIC. 

lishment upon a field like this of political liberty grounded 
in justice, — on the characteristics of the American race, — 
on the Christian idea of man that was moulding their insti- 
tutions, — it seemed to them that human progress was about 
to receive a fresh impulse, "as if the New World was to 
surpass the Old, and the glory of human nature was to 
receive the highest perfection near the setting sun." In the 
inspiration of this thought of a glorious future, the popular 
leaders shaped and carried into effect measures having in 
view the founding of a republic. The ideal of the territory 
which the contemplated republic was to comprehend is seen 
in the common use of the term " continental " ; the ideal of 
the cause is seen in the common remark that it was the 
cause of human nature. By utterances and action in har- 
mony with these views, the sentiment of nationality became 
the spring and passion of the popular party. To trace its 
development is to trace the steps of a free people, when, 
with minds exalted by such views, they assmned the dignity 
and responsibility of decreeing themselves a nation.^ 



1 The following extracts from elaborate articles in the newspapers give an idea of 
the high-toned political utterances of the period of the adoption of the Declaration, 
and of the first years of its maintenance. 

"It is apparent that the Almighty Constructor of the Universe, having formed 
this continent of materials to compose a state pre-eminent in the world, is now making 
use of the tyranny of the British rulers as an instrument to fashion and arrange 
those materials for the end for which, in his wisdom, he had formed them." — 
William Henry Drayton, Chief Justice of South Carolina, Charge to the Court, April 
23, 1776. 

"A Soldier" writes: "The whole series of divine dispensations, from the infant 
days of our fathers in America, are big with importance in her favor, and point to 
something great and good. If we look round the world, and view the nations with 
their various connections, interests, and dependencies, we shall see innumerable causes 
at work in favor of this growing country: Nature and Art seem to labor, and as it 
were travail, in birth to bring forth some glorious events that will astonish mankind 
and form a bright era in the annals of time." — Independent Chronicle, Oct. 17, 
1776. 

"Look around the world, and you cannot find a country like this. Nature has 
been lavish of her bounties to America, as if the New World was to surpass the Old, 
and the glory of human nature was to receive its highest perfection near the setting 
sun. . . . America is more extensive in territory than all the states and kingdoms 
of Europe, is blessed with every climate, and situated for the commerce of the world; 
and, according to the best computations, iu the course of one century the United 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 488 

It is ii'^t easy to select and compress into a small space 
sucli facts from the voluminous records of tins period as 
will mark the stages of the growth of public opinion in favor 
of independence. The argument for it, viewed under the 
brilliant light of success, seems to-day to have been of 
commanding power: yet it was urged long before a majority 
would pronounce in its favor ; and, even at the last, una- 
nimity on it was far from having been obtained. A final 
separation from Great Britain was opposed by the Tories 
in solid phalanx, in the conviction that it was sure to be 
ruinous ; and they were strong in talent, character, social 
and official influence, and numbers. A large party in the 
Whig ranks, in the fear that anarchy would result from a 
change, were in favor of preserving the connection with the 
mother country, and down to the last moment they urged 
that the door of reconciliation was still open ; another por- 
tion had reached the conviction that a separation must take 
place, and were in favor of it, but held that the time for it 
had not come : and both classes comprehended characters 
held by that generation deservedly in respect, and by pos- 
terity in veneration. Tlien numbers, who took no decisive 
part in the struggle, were lukewarm: and this class are 
never to be overlooked in practical politics, for they are apt 
to veer to the side which they hope or expect will prove the 
strongest, and so turn the scale. Then there was the dis- 
position, especially in New York and the Southern colonies, 
to trust time to bring about a redress of grievances. It was 
much urged, also, that independence involved a landing in 
republicanism, as if to make this point clear were conclu- 
sive against the measure. Republican principles, since the 
Revolution, had been loaded with obloquy in England ; and 
this feeling prevailed to no small extent in the colonies, 
particularly south of New England. It is scarcely just to 

States will have sixty millions of people. No human mind can form an adequate 
idea of the millions whose happiness may depend on our virtue in this important 
crisis." — Boston Gazette, Feb. 10, 1777. 



464 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

state the position of a party in tlie language of its opponents ; 
but a Whig appeal in favor of independence gives the gist 
of the matter with which the journals teemed, stating the 
points urged against it in these words : " Intestine confu- 
sions, continual wars with each other, Republics, and 
Presbyterian governments compose the bugbear of the day ; 
and the very name of them frightens people more than the 
whole force of Great Britain." 

As the popular leaders urged a dissolution of the bonds that 
connected the people with a monarchy, they sought not only 
to form local governments, but to establish a general govern- 
ment with a limited range of powers, to execute certain 
fnuctions necessary to all, — or to form ties that would unite 
the people in a permanent political society, and combine the 
strength of the whole for the common defence. It was a 
grave question, whether the two objects of independence and 
a general government should be pressed at the same time. 
Some urged that, first, the colonies should abrogate royal 
authority, set up local governments, establish a constitution 
for the whole, form an alliance with France, and then they 
might safely venture to issue a declaration of independence. 
They held that the people should organize a general govern- 
ment before decreeing themselves a nation. Others, not 
less convinced of tlie necessity of a general government, 
bent their energies to the single work of bringing about an 
abrogation of royal authority in the several colonies, and a 
joint declaration of independence, relying for success on 
the fact and the strength of union. They were in favor of 
decreeing themselves a nation, in the faith that a general 
government would follow in course. 

Among the latter was Samuel Adams. He did not cease 
to urge a confederation ; but after the reception of the king's 
proclamation, and the news of the fate of the second petition 
in November, he advocated a declaration of independence. 
In Congress, in private letters, and in the newspapers, he 
set forth this as the next step. This was the significance of 



BIRTH OP THE NATION. 465 

the recommendation which Congress gave to New Hamp- 
shire, South Carolina, and Virginia to form local govern- 
ments. The advice was unaccompanied with any details 
as to methods, or any restrictions. It was looked upon as 
equivalent to revolution, and a step towards a declaration 
of independence. 

This decisive step roused into activity the opponents of 
independence. Of these John Dickinson was by far the 
most prominent, one of the few popular leaders who had a 
colonial reputation of so much influence as to constitute 
him a power. He had faith in the rights and liberties to be 
enjoyed in union with the mother country, but looked with 
doubt and trembling at the future which a premature sep- 
aration might bring. " The rescript to our petition," he 
said, " is written in blood. While we revere and love our 
country, her sword is opening our veins. France and Spain, 
if not other powers, long jealous of Britain's force and influ- 
ence, will fall upon her, embarrassed with an exhausting 
civil war, and crush, or at least depress her; then turn their 
arms on these provinces, which must submit to wear their 
chains, or wade through seas of blood to a dear-bought and 
at best a frequently convulsed and precarious independ- 
ence." ^ He regarded the step as premature. His course 
met the approval of the Quakers, who now put forth an 
address for peace when the very air was hot with war, and 
pleaded for the avoidance of all such measures as were likely 
to widen or perpetuate the breach with the parent state.^ 
This influence was strong in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and 
New Jersey. In addition, there was the powerful element 
of the Proprietary interest, which sturdily resisted a change. 

This compact body of conservatism now made itself felt. 
The Pennsylvania Assembly (Nov. 9, 1775), mainly through 
the instrumentality of Dickinson,^ instructed its delegates 

1 Letter, April 29, 1775. Life of Arthur Lee, ii. 311. 

2 This "Address of the People called Quakers" is in the "Pennsylvania 
Packet" of Nov. 13, 1775. 



8 Reed's Life of Reed, i. 155. 



30 



466 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

in Congress to endeavor to restore harmony between Great 
Britain and her colonies, using this language : " We strictly 
enjoin you, that you, in behalf of this colony, dissent from 
and utterly reject any propositions, should such be made, 
that may cause or lead to a separation from our mother 
country, or a change of the form of this government." Tlic 
Assembly of New Jersey, on the 28th of November, used 
nearly the same language, directing their delegates " not to 
give their assent to, but utterly to reject, any propositions, 
if such should be made, that may separate this colony from 
the mother country, or change the form of the government 
thereof." ^ The Maryland Convention, which assembled on 
the 7th of December, ordered a "Declaration" to be entered 
on their journals, which averred that the people of that 
province " never did nor do entertain any views or desires 
of independency," and as they considered their union with 
the mother country " their highest felicity, so would they 
view the fatal necessity of separating from her as a misfor- 
tune next to the greatest that can befall them." The New 
York Provincial Congress, on the 14tli of December, de- 
clared that none of the people of that colony had withdrawn 
their allegiance, and that their turbulent state did not arise 
" from a desire to become independent of the British crown," 
but from " oppressive Acts," and " the hostile attempts of the 
ministry " to carry them into execution.^ The Delaware 

^ Governor Franklin, of New Jersey, in a speech to the Assembly, Nov. 16, 1775, 
states that His Majesty's squadrons had orders to proceed against any town raising 
troops, &c., and adds: "As sentiments of independency are by some men of present 
consequence openly avowed, and essays are already appearing in the public papers 
to ridicule the people's fears of that horrid measure, and remove their aversion to 
republican government, it is high time every man should know what he has to 
expect." The General Assembly in reply said: "We know of no sentiments of 
independency that are by men of any consequence openly avowed; nor do we 
approve of any essays tending to encourage such a measure. We have already 
expressed our detestation of such opinions." Franklin's speech is in the "Pennsyl- 
vania Evening Post" of Nov. 18, 1775. 

2 The Provincial Congress of New York, on the 14th of December, 1775, — 

"Resolved, That it is the opinion of this Congress that none of the people of this 
colony have withdrawn their allegiance from His Majesty. 

" Resolved, That the supposed present turbulent state of this colony arises not from 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 467 

Assembly instructed its delegates to promote reconciliation, 
and shared the feeling of Pennsylvania. Thus, to counteract 
the movement begun in Congress, the governments of the 
Middle Colonies were arrayed in solid phalanx against 
the measure of independence. 

An address of the North-Carolina Provincial Congress 
now appeared in the newspapers, which disclaimed in earnest 
terms the design of independence, and invoked the Almighty 
to attest " that it was their most earnest wish and prayer 
to be restored, with the other united colonies, to the state 
in wliich they were placed before the year 1763 " ; ^ also 
instructions of the town of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to 
their delegates in the Provincial Congress (December 25), 
adverse to the formation of a local government, on the ground 
that it would furnish their enemies " with arguments to per- 
suade the good people there that we are aiming at indepen- 
dency, which we totally disavow." 

These expressions were in harmony with the past earnest 
avowals by individuals and public bodies, and especially with 
the declarations of the General Congress. An elaborate 
argument against separation, a little later, was fortified by 
an array of these disclaimers, representing that one-third of 
the inhabitants were on record in favor of reconciliation, 
without taking into account the disavowals of independence 
by Congress. These facts show how general the idea was 
that the popular party was opposing an administration, and 
not overturning a government. 

Notwithstanding these disclaimers, the logic of events led 
directly to independence ; and from the memorable nine- 

the want of a proper attachment to our prince and the establishment of the ilhistrious 
House of Hanover, nor from a desire to become independent of the Britisli crown, or 
a spirit of opposition to that just and equal rule to which, by the British Constitution, 
and our ancient and established form, we are subject; but solely from the inroads 
made on both by the oppressive Acts of the British Parliament, devised for enslaving 
His INIajesty's liege subjects in the American colonics, and the hostile attempts of the 
ministry to carry these Acts into execution."— New York Constitutional Gazette, 
Dec. IG, 1775. 

1 The citation in the text is copied from the Address as printed in the Pennsyl- 
vania Packet" of Dec. 4, 1775. 



468 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

teenth of April the growth of the measure was steady. 
As early as October it was a favorite in the camp around 
Boston.^ The press of New England then circulated glow- 
ing appeals in its support.^ Before the close of the year the 
great step was more widely advocated. In North Carolina, 
a writer, criticising severely the action of the Pennsylvania 
Assembly, reasoned, that, " to become a happy, wealthy, 
powerful, and respectable people," it was necessary to declare 
" an immediate independency, and open the ports to every 
European power except Great Britain." ^ Almost simul- 
taneously a writer in Massachusetts urged that " the con- 
curring circumstances in divine Providence make it a present 
duty, for laying the foundations of well-being for many gen- 
erations," that " The United Colonies " form themselves 
into " an independent constitution, or republic state."* One 
writer in Virginia argued that the time had come to cut the 
Gordian knot that bound the colonies to Great Britain,^ and 
another recommended the formation of " what might be 
called the Constitution of the United English Colonies." 

In the beginning of the memorable year seventeen hundred 
and seventy-six there was a public opinion in favor of inde- 
pendence in New England, and but little more than individual 
preferences for it in the Middle or Southern Colonics. On 
New Year's Day Washington for the first time unfurled the 
Flag of the Thirteen Stripes as the flag of the United 
Colonies. To array this flag, as the symbol of national 
power, against the far-famed banner of Saint George, involved 
great labor. It required time and patience to encourage the 
timid, to instruct the unenlightened, and above all to sur- 
mount prejudice. So deeply seated was the affection for the 

1 Dr. Jeremy Belknap visited the camp in October, and in his journal of the 19th 
says: "I found that the plan of independence was become a favorite point in the 
army, and that it was offensive to pray for the king." — T-ife, p. 02. 

2 See citations above, p. 452. 

3 A British American, Dec. 28, 1775, in Force's Archives, 4th Series, iv. 470. 
* Johannes in Eremo, dated Jan. 1, 177G, in " Essex Gazette." 

6 Article in "Virginia Gazette" of January and " New-Kngland Chronicle" of 
February 1. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 469 

mother couiitiy, that it required all the sej^ere acts of war 
directed by an inexorable ministry and the fierce words from 
the throne to be made fully known throughout America, 
before the majority of the people could be persuaded to 
renounce their allegiance and assume the sovereignty. 

Jefferson says that Samuel Adams was constantly holding 
caucuses of distinguished men, in which the measures to be 
pursued were generally determined upon, and their several 
parts were assigned to the actors who afterwards appeared 
in them ; ^ but he does not give the dates of these consulta- 
tions, or the names (with the exception of Richard Henry 
Lee) of the persons who attended them, nor tell precisely 
what was done there. He ascribed great influence to Samuel 
Adams in promoting the Revolution. His labors in the cause 
had been for years so unremitting, that it may be justly said 
of him, " His feet were ever in the stirrup, his lance ever in 
its rest." A goodly band were now with him in urging the 
measure of independence. A contemporary happily re- 
marks : " For a nation to be born, it required all the mighty 
efforts of those bold, wise, and noble-minded statesmen who 
adorned this era in the annals of their country." ^ 

The popular leaders who are found earliest identified 
with independence are Samuel Adams, John Adams, Joseph 
Hawley, Elbridge Gerry, James Sullivan, and James War- 
ren, of Massachusetts ; Matthew Thornton, of New Hamp- 
shire ; Nathaniel Greene and Samuel Ward, of Rhode 
Island ; Benjamin Rush and Benjamin Franklin, of Penn- 
sylvania ; Thomas McKean, of Delaware ; Samuel Chase, 
of Maryland ; Richard Henry Lee, George Wythe, Patrick 
Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington, of Vir- 
ginia ; Cornelius Harnett, of North Carolina ; and Chris- 
topher Gadsden, of South Carolina. It is remarkable that 
the popular instinct kept so true to the cluster of Revo- 
lutionary statesmen. This remark is applicable not only to 

1 Randall's Life of Jefferson, i. 182. 

2 Eliot's Biographical Dictionarj', 13. 



470 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

the band of patriots just enumerated, but to others also 
whose names are household words. Through the entire 
struggle, the people sought out, held fast to, and rallied 
around greatness and virtue, and made these qualities sub- 
serve the public good. No outpourings of obloquy, no thick- 
ening peril, shook this noble trust. No gusts of feeling 
from temporary reverses moved them to seek new guides ; 
but as dangers multiplied, confidence strengthened. And 
so it was that out of rare public virtue grew our great repub- 
lican government. 

One of the earliest advocates for a declaration of inde- 
pendence was Nathaniel Greene, a noble representative of 
the sentiment of the army around Boston. Besides previous 
suggestion, he wrote on the 4th of January: "Permit me 
to recommend from' the sincerity of my heart, ready at all 
times to bleed in my country's cause, a declaration of inde- 
pendence, and call upon the world, and the great God who 
governs it, to witness the necessity, propriety, and rectitude 
thereof. My worthy friend, the interests of mankind hang 
upon that truly worthy body of which you are a member. 
You stand the representatives not of America only, but of 
the whole world, the friends of liberty and the supporters 
of the rights of human nature. How will posterity, millions 
yet unborn, bless the memory of those brave patriots who 
are now hastening the consummation of truth, freedom, and 
religion ! " ^ Three days later (January 7) Samuel Adams, 
urging not only independence, but confederation, wrote : "It 
[confederation] is not dead, but sleepeth. While I am writ- 
ing, an express has come in that the ships-of-war were can- 
nonnading Norfolk. This will prevail more than a long train 
of reasoning to accomplish a confederation, and other matters 
which I know your heart as well as mine is much set upon." ^ 

1 Greene's entire letter, dated from the camp on Prospect Hill, and addressed to 
Samuel Ward, member of Congress, is in Force's Archives, 4th Series, iv. 572. lie 
had written to William B. Greene, Dec. 20, 1775, "We are now driven to the neces- 
Bity of making a declaration of independence." 

2 Letter to James Warren, MS. 



BIRTH OP THE NATION. 471 

On receiving the king's speech, he wrote: "The tyrant! his 
speech breathes the most malevolent spirit. ... I have 
heard that he is his own minister : why, then, should we cast 
the odium of distressing mankind upon his minions ? Guilt 
must lie at his door : divine vengeance will fall on his 
head." ^ On seeing the instructions of the town of Ports- 
mouth, he wrote : " What have we to expect from Britain 
but chains and slavery ? I hope we shall act the part which 
the great law of Nature points out. It is high time that we 
should assume that character which, I am sorry to find, the 
capital of your colony has publicly and expressly disavowed. 
It is my most fervent prayer to a mighty God that He would 
direct and prosper the councils of America, inspire her armies 
with true courage, . . . and lead them on to victory and 
triumph.""'^ Washington soon urged shaking off the connec- 
tion with Great Britain, using words " as clear as the sun in 
its meridian brightness."^ 

One of these pioneers, Benjamin Rush, a physician of cul- 
ture and public spirit, was much pleased with a piece in 
favor of the abolition ot slavery, written by Thomas Paine, 
an Englishman. Bred in a Quaker family, on being dis- 
missed, at nearly forty years of age, from his office of 
exciseman, Paine emigrated to America. He arrived here 
in December, 1774, bearing a letter from Franklin, which 
procured him employment, first in the service of a book- 
seller, and soon after as editor of the " Pennsylvania Maga- 
zine." Imbued with the republican ideas of Milton and 
Sidney, though without the elevation of their reverence and 
Christian faith, he became convinced of the justice and great- 
ness of the American cause, which, he said, "in a great 
measure was the cause of all mankind." Rush having 

1 Letter quoted by Bancroft, viii. 242. 

2 Letter to General James Sullivan, Jan. 12, 1776, MS. On the subject of the 
New-IIanipshire instructions, Samuel Adams, Jan. 12 and 15, wrote to John Adams, 
who was then at Braintree, "I wish, if it be not too late, that you would write your 
sentiments," &c. — John Adams's Works, ix. 371. 

8 Sparks's Writings of Washington, iii. 286. 



472 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

called on him, and suggested that he should prepare a work 
on separation, he forthwith began to write, and as he pro- 
ceeded, read the sheets to his adviser: they were also 
submitted to Franklin and Samuel Adams. The work, at 
the further suggestion of Rush entitled "Common Sense," ^ 
was published on the 9th of January, in a pamphlet of forty- 
four pages, announcing itself as " written by an English- 
man," and " addressed to the inhabitants of America." 

The matter is arranged under the four heads " Of the 
origin and design of government in general, with concise 
remarks on the English Constitution " ; " Of monarchy and 
hereditary succession" ; "Thoughts on the present state of 
military affairs " ; and " Of the present ability of America, 
with some miscellaneous reflections." The portion on Gov- 
ernment has little of permanent value, the glance at the 
English Constitution is superficial, and the attack on Mon- 
archy is coarse. This division commences with affirming 
that mankind were originally equals in the order of creation. 
The treatment of the American question, under the two last 
heads, gave the pamphlet its celebrity. 

The following selections from " Common Sense " may 
serve to show how it presented the American race, their 
union, their call to take independent rank as a nation, and 
their duly to establish a general government. 

" I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, 
and common sense. The period of debate is closed. Arms, 
as the last recourse, decide the contest. The appeal was the 
choice of the king, and the continent hath accepted the chal- 
lenge." 

" The sun never sinned on a cause of greater worth. 

1 Benjamin Rush to James Cheetham, July 17, 1809. Cheetham's Life of Paine, 
34. Rush says: "I called upon Mr. Paine, and suggested to him the propriety of 
preparing our citizens for a perpetual separation of our countr}' from Great Britain, 
by means of a work of such length as would obviate all the objections to it. He seized 
the idea with avidity, and immediately began his famous pamphlet in favor of that 
measure. He read the sheets to me at my house, as he composed them. I advised 
him to put them into the hands of Dr. Franklin, Samuel Adams, and the late Judge 
Wilson." 



BIRTH OP THE NATION. 473 

'Tis not the affair of a citj, a county, a province, or a king- 
dom, but of a continent, — of at least one-eighth part of the 
habitable globe. 'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or 
an age : posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and 
will be more or less affected, even to the end of time, by the 
proceedings now. Now is the seed-time of continental 
union, faith, and honor. The least fracture now will be like 
a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind 
of a young oak : the wound will enlarge with the tree, and 
posterity read it in full-grown characters." 

" By referring the matter from argument to arms, a new 
era for politics is struck, a new method of thinking has 
arisen. All plans, proposals, <fec., prior to the 19th of April, — 
i.e., to the commencement of hostilities, — are like the alma- 
nacs of the last year, which, though proper then, are super- 
seded and useless now." 

" Britain is the parent country, say some. Then the more 
shame for her conduct. Europe, not England, is the parent 
country of America. This New World hath been the asylum 
for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from, 
every part of Europe. The same tyranny which drove the 
first emigrants from home pursues their descendants still. 
We claim brotherhood with every European Christian, and 
triumph in the generosity of the sentiment." 

" I challenge the warmest advocate for reconciliation to 
shew a single advantage that this continent can reap by 
being connected with Great Britain. Everything that is 
right or reasonable pleads for separation. The blood of the 
slain, the weeping voice of Nature cries, 'Tis time to part. 
Even the distance at which the Almighty hath placed Eng- 
land and America is a strong and natural proof that the 
authority of the one over the other was never the design of 
Heaven. Men of passive tempers look somewhat lightly over 
thd offences of Britain, and, still hoping for the best, are apt 
to call out, ' Come, come ! we shall be friends again for all 
this.' But examine the passions and feelings of mankind, 



474 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of 
Nature, and tlicn tell me whether you can hereafter love, 
honor, and faithfully serve the power that hath carried fire 
and sword into your land? If you cannot do all these, then 
are you only deceiving yourselves, and by your delay bring- 
ing ruin on posterity. But if you say you can pass the 
violations over, then I ask. Hath your house been burnt ? 
hatli your property been destroyed before your face? have 
you lost a parent or child by their hands, and yourself the 
ruined and wretched survivor ? If you have not, then you 
are not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and can 
still shake hands with the murderer, then are you unworthy 
the name of husband, father, friend, or lover; and, whatever 
may be your rank and title in life, you have the heart of a 
coward and the spirit of a sycophant. 'Tis not in the power 
of England or of Europe to conquer America, if she doth not 
conquer herself by delay and timidity. The present winter 
is worth an age, if rightly employed, — but if lost or neglected, 
the whole continent will partake of the misfortune." 

" But the most powerful of all arguments is, that nothing 
but independence — i.e., a continental form of government — 
can keep the peace of the continent, and preserve it inviolate 
from civil wars. The general temper of the colonies toward 
a British government will be like that of a youth who is 
nearly out of his time : they will care very little about her. 
And a government that cannot preserve the peace is no 
government at all. I have heard some men say that they 
dreaded independence, fearing that it would produce civil 
wars. The colonies have manifested such a spirit of good 
order and obedience to continental government as is sufficient 
to make every reasonable person easy and happy on that 
head. If there is any true cause for fear respecting inde- 
pendence, it is because no plan is yet laid down. As there 
is a peculiar delicacy from whom or in what manner this 
business must first arise, let a continental conference be 
held. Let their business be to frame a continental charter, 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 475 

or charter of the United Colonies (answering to what is 
called the Magna Charta of England), fixing the number 
and manner of choosing members of Congress, members of 
Assembly, with their date of sitting, and drawing the line of 
business and jurisdiction between them ; alway remembering 
that our strength and happiness is continental, not provin- 
cial ; securing freedom and property to all men, and, above 
all things, the free exercise of religion according to the dic- 
tates of conscience." 

" All men allow the measure, and vary only in their opin- 
ion of the time. The time hath found us. The general 
concurrence, the glorious union of all things, prove the fact. 
'Tis not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength 
lies ; yet our present numbers are sufficient to repel the 
force of all the world. Debts we have none ; and whatever 
we may contract on this account will serve as a glorious 
memento of our virtue. Can we but leave posterity with a 
settled form of government, an independent constitution of 
its own, the purchase at any price will be cheap. Nothing 
but continental authority can regulate continental matters. 
Youth is the seed-time of good habits, as well in nations as 
in individuals. It might be difficult, if not impossible, to 
form the continent into one government half a century 
hence. The vast variety of interests occasioned by an in- 
crease of trade and population would create confusion. 
Colony would be against colony. Each being able would 
scorn the other's assistance ; and while the proud and foolish 
gloried in their little distinctions, the wise would lament 
that the union had not been formed before. Wherefore the 
present time is the true time to establish it. The present 
time, lilccwise, is that peculiar time which never happens 
to a nation but once in the time of forming itself into a 
government." 

" Under our present denomination of British subjects," 
arc the closing words, " we can neither be received nor heard 
abroad : the custom of all courts is against us, and will be 



476 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

SO until by an independence we take rank with otlier na- 
tions. These proceedings may at first appear strange and 
difficult, but, like all other steps which we have passed over, 
will in a little time become familiar and agreeable ; and 
until independence is declared, the continent will feel itself 
like a man who continues putting off some unpleasant busi- 
ness from day to day, yet knows it must be done, hates to 
set about it, wishes it over, and is continually haunted with 
the thoughts of its necessity," 

However crude may be the conception both of local and 
general constitutions, the presentation of the argument for 
independence was strong. The author wrote in a plain and 
nervous style, and used homely and even coarse illustra- 
tions. He had a genius for handling the ^' torch for burn- 
ing," and there is a wild fire in his work. It was read by a 
people prepared to listen to a plea addressed through their 
lacerated feelings to their manhood. Never was a political 
appeal more generally welcomed or more cordially indorsed. 
Edition upon edition was called for. "It did wonders, 
worked miracles." " Thousands," says Ramsay, " were 
converted by it, and were led to long for a separation from 
the mother country." ^ 

1 "Common Sense, written by an Englishman," was advertise! in the "Penn- 
sj'lvania Evening Post" of Jan. 9, 1776, as published that day by Robert Bell, 
Third Street, Philadelphia. On the 20tli Bell advertised a new edition, in subsequent 
advertisements termed the second. The words "written by an Englishman" are 
left out in this edition. On the 17th of February he announced "Additions to 
Common Sense," on the 20th advertised as "Large Additions." Two of these, 
signed "(Jandidus" and "Sincerus," were written by Samuel Adams, and copied 
from the newspapers. The third edition, also printed by Bell, has the following title- 
page: "Common Sense: with the Whole Appendix: the Address to the Quakers: 
also the Large j\dditions, and a Dialogue between the Ghost of General Montgomery 
just arrived from the Elysian Fields and an American Delegate, in a Wood near 
Philadelphia, on the Grand Subject of American Independency. Philadelphia. Sold 
by II. Bell, 1770." pp. 147. The Dialogue at the end makes sixteen pages, and 
is furnished with a separate title-page which serves also for a cover to this piece in a 
separate pamphlet. 

Meantime, on the 25th of Januaiy W. & T. Bradford announce the preparation 
of a new edition of "Common Sense," "with large and interesting additions by the 
Author, as will be expressed at the time of publication, among which will be a 
seasoaable and friendly admonition to the people called Quakers. They state that 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 477 

The great question was now discussed at every fireside, 
and tlie favorite toast at every dinner-table was, " May the 
independent principles of ' Common Sense ' be confirmed 
throughout the United Colonics." ^ It was pronounced over 
the remains of Warren, that his spirit forbade a continuance 
of the connection with a country which had forfeited every 
claim of kindred.- It was declared as the voice of Mont- 
gomery, that God did not awaken the attention of all 
Europe, of the whole world, nay, of angels themselves, to 
the present controversy, without a purpose ; that the country 
teemed with patriots, heroes, and legislators impatient to 
burst into light, and that the decree had gone forth that 
Great Britain and America were distinct empires.^ It was 
said to a people trained under Christian influences, who 

"several hundreds are already bespoke, one thousand for Virginia"; also that 
a German edition was in press. This advertisement had a card, addressed "To the 
Public," stating that the publisher of the first edition was expressly directed by the 
author not to proceed to issue a new one. This was the beginning of an angry 
paper war between the two parties. On the 20th of February the edition announced 
by Bradford was advertised as follows: " The new edition of ' Common Sense,' with 
additions and improvements in the body of the work: to which is added an appendix 
and an address to the people called Quakers. N.B. The additions which are here 
given amount to upwards of one-third of any former edition." This is a pamphlet 
of fifty pages. It has the following P.S. : " The publication of this new edition hath 
been delayed, with a view of taking notice (had it been necessary) of any at- 
tempt to refute the doctrme of Independence. As no answer hath j'et appeared, 
it is-now presumed that none will; the time needful for getting such a performance 
ready for the public being considerably past. Who the author of this production is 
is wholly unnecessary to the public, as the object of attention is the doctrine, not the 
man. Yet it may not be unnecessary to say, that he is unconnected with any party, 
and under no sort of influence, public or private, but the influence of reason and 
principle." Philadelphia, Feb. 14, 1776. An answer, "Plain Truth," was adver- 
tised ill the "Pennsylvania Evening Post " of March 14. 

"Common Sense" was reprinted, in 1776, in Boston, Salem, Newburyport, Provi- 
dence, Newport, Norwich, New York, Charleston, copies of these several editions 
being still extant in libraries in Massachusetts. It was probably reprinted in other 
places. It was reprinted in London, and extracts from it are in the " London 
Chronicle " of May 30, 1776. The Additions also were reprinted, and one side of the 
issue of that journal of June 29 is filled with extracts from them. It was printed 
in 1776 in Edinburgh. In 1792, an edition in London is called the ninth. It was 
reprinted in 1817. Chasms occur in the English editions, as the reflections on the 
king and government could not have been printed without hazard. It was reprinted 
likewise in France. 

J- New-England Chronicle. 

2 Oration by Perez Morton, April 8, 1776. 8 Paine' s Dialogue. 



478 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

habitually looked upward in every form of supplication, that 
the spirit which actuated the United Colonies "was as much 
from God as the descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of 
Pentecost, and was introductory to something great and 
good to mankind." ^ 

The issue was of a nature to rouse passion, alarm wealth, 
and stir society to its depths. In each colony, the friends 
and opponents of independence, animated at times by intem- 
perate as well as by judicious zeal, hurled against each other 
the usual weapons of partisan strife, poisoned by the hatred 
and revenge engendered by civil war. With the Whigs it 
was not yet a test question, and they were divided on it : 
while the political leaders advocating it were uniformly 
veterans in their ranks. The Tories, of course, vehemently 
opposed independence ; while Wliigs, held in the higliest 
regard took the character of conservatives, and were recog- 
nized by those of the opposite party as their leaders on this 
question. These strange affinities, and the fearful rising of 
the political waves, became a source of painful anxiety. 
Washington expressed deep concern lest the prevailing 
divisions and parties should prove the ruin of the American 
cause.2 The divisions, however, were not geographical. 
They did not grow out of provincial or temporary questions. 
They concerned the rights of human nature, as well. as the 
question of American independence, and formed the basis 
for a noble homogeneity ; and the intermingling in each of 
the thirteen colonies of the adherents of two great parties, 
devoted to tlie cause they mutually supported, and placing 
its fortunes uppermost, served to lift their thoughts and 
affections from things merely provincial, to concentrate 



1 Article in the " Ncw-Enp^land Chronicle." 

2 Letter to Joseph Reed, April 15, 177C. He writes: "I am exceedingly con- 
cerned to hear of the divisions and parties which prevail with 3-011, and in the 
Southern colonies, on the score of independence. . . . Nothing but disunion can hurt 
our cause. This will ruin it, if great prudence, temper, and moderation are not 
mixed in our councils, and made the governing principle of the contending parties." 
— Sparks's Wa.shington, iii. 357. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 479 

them on vital ideas, and to unite them in the bonds of a 
common sentiment and object. In tlie case of the Whigs, 
the very intensity of the feeling on so grand an issue as 
independence, tended to ennoble and strengthen their union. 
"The Re])ublicans are the nation," remarked Jefferson; and 
this may be designated as the period during which a people 
of living faith in the republican idea were determining to be 
a nation. 

The contemporary authorities relating to the growth of 
the national sentiment become now of peculiar interest. I 
have examined much of this material in manuscript and in 
print. I have not met, down to this date, the proposal by a 
Whig to decree the existence of thirteen nations, or to seek 
refuge in a monarchy or in imperialism, much less to hawk 
about an offer of American sovereignty among foreign 
powers.! The purpose uniformly expressed is, to rely on 
the resolution and virtue of thirteen free communities, their 
power if united, and their ability to bind their union with 
the cement of law and government. 

A few citations may serve to show the political aim and 
tone. In by far the most famous publication of the time, 
" Common Sense," it was urged that nothing short of a 
continental government could insure domestic peace ; and 
this publication was indorsed by zealous Whigs from Massa- 
chusetts to the Carolinas.2 A New-York writer, in enforcing 

1 Governor Pownal, Dec. 2, 1777, in a speech in the House of Commons, said 
of the Americans: "They are determined, to maintain their independence at all 
events. The Dutch, in their distress, hawked about the offer of the sovereignty of 
their country. They offered it to the Duke of Anjou, thej' offered it to Henry the 
Third of France, they offered it to Elizabeth of England; but the Americans will 
never offer tliat of their country to any power on earth." This was printed in the 
"London General Advertiser," Dec. 6, 1777. 

2 A note on page 476 contains statements relating to the editions of " Common 
Sense " The evidence of its eflfect is abundant. A few extracts will show how it 
was received in different sections of the country : — 

" New-England Chronicle," of March 28, 177G, copies the appendix to " Common 
Sense," written by Paine, with the following remarks: "The public in general 
having read, and (excepting a few timid Whigs and disguised Tories) loudly 
applauded tliat truly excellent pamphlet, entitled 'Common Sense,' our readers will 
doubthss be pleased with the following appendix," &c. The "Boston Gazette," 



i80 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

the importance of establisliiiig government local and general, 
regarded the internal polity of the colonies so different, that 
uniformity among them in this matter could not be expected ; 
" though," he said, " it would be happy if they might agree 
in all essential particulars, as it would tend to cement their 
union and make them coalesce as one continental body 
politic." And he urged that each colony should be left to 
form its own internal polity, but that there should be " a 
solemn stipulation or confederation of all the colonies, to 
endure until time shall be no more." ^ A Virginian rea- 
soned that, unless Great Britain repealed the obnoxious acts 
and reimbursed America for her losses, the war ought to go 
on until the colonies were acknowledged a free and independ- 
ent republic. 2 One member of the convention of this 
colony argued that, if any government were formed, it 
should be the best that could be obtained ; ^ another, that 

April 29, 177G, has the following: "Had the spirit of prophecy directed the birth of 
a publication, it could not have fallen upon a more fortunate period than the time in 
which ' Common Sense ' made its appearance. The minds of men are now swal- 
lowed up in attention to an object the most momentous and important that ever yet 
employed the deliberations of a people." 

New York, March 22. "A pamphlet entitled 'Common Sense' has converted 
thousands to independence that could not endure the idea before." — Almon's Remem- 
brancer, iii. 87. It IS stated in the "New-York Gazette," April 8, that "the subject 
of conversation throughout America for these few weeks past hath been excited by a 
pamphlet called 'Common Sense.' " 

A Philadelphia letter of March 12 says: '" Common Sense' is read to all ranks; 
and as many as read, so many become converted; though perhaps the hour before 
were most violent against the least idea of independence." — Almon's Remem- 
brancer, iii 31. 

The '■ Pennsylvania Evening Post " of Feb. 1-3, 1776, contains a letter from Mary- 
land, dated February 6, which says : " If you know the author of Common Sense,' 
tell him he has done wonders and worked miracles, made Tories AVhigs, and washed 
blackamores white. He has made a great number of converts here." The same 
paper of March 26 contains a letter dated Charleston, February 14, which sa3's: " Who 
is the author of 'Common Sense'? lean scarce refrain from adoring him. He 
deserves a statue of gold." A letter dated Georgetown, South Carolina, Jlarch 17, 
1776, says: '"Common Sense' hath made independents of the majority of the coun- 
try, and Gadsden is as mad with it as he ever was without it" — Proceedings of 
Mas.sachusetts Historical Society. 1?69, 1870, 254. 

1 This essay is dated March 21, 1776. Force's American Archives, 4th Series, 
V. 450. 

2 A planter, April 6, 1776 Ibid., 798. 

8 Letter dated Feb. 25, 1776, he writes: "Some people among us seem alarmed 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 481 

a uniform plan prepared by Congress and approved by the 
colonies "would be a surer foundation for harmony than 
for each colony to form its own government.'' ^ A Connec- 
ticut writer said, that an American state or empire was 
much talked of, which was to be formed of colonies heretofore 
independent of each other ; and was in favor of a " con- 
federation, covenant, or compact," limiting " the power of 
their head or congress," without infringing the rights of any. 
He thought that with a declaration of independence, such a 
covenant would be as necessary as their political existence.^ 
A Philadelphia writer, in an elaborate essay, averVed that the 
true principles of republicanism were so well understood, 
and the mode of conducting such government so simple, and 
America so fit for its reception, that it would be easy to form a 
plan for the United Colonies which "would as much exceed 
any now existing as the British Constitution does that of 
Caflfraria ; " and he could not help cherishing a secret hope 
that " God had destined America to form the last and best 
plan that could possibly exist, and that He would gradually 
carry those who had been long under the galling yoke of 
tyranny in every other quarter of the globe into the bosom 
of perfect liberty and freedom in America." ^ 

Franklin alone of the popular leaders submitted to Con- 
gress a plan for a confederation.'^ Others, however, ex- 

at the idea of independence, while they support measures and propose plans 
that comprehend the spirit of it. . . . Are we not criminal in the sight of Britain for 
what we have done. ... If we institute any government, let it be the best we can. 
We shall as certainly be hanged for a bad as for a good one; for they will allow 
nothing for the waverings of filial tenderness." — Pennsylvania .Journal, April 3, 
1776. 

1 Richard Lee. John Adams's Works, ix. 374. 

2 This essay is dated Maj' 9, 1776. Force's Archives, 4th Series, vi. 399. 

3 The citations are from an elaborate article addressed " To the People of North 
America on the Different Kinds of Government," in the " Pennsylvania Journal " of 
March 13, 1770, signed " Salus Populi." 

* Franklin in Januar\' endeavored to get a day fixed for the consideration of his 
plan, but he was opposed by Hooper and Dickinson, and they prevailed. — Bancroft, 
viii. 24.5. One side of the " Pennsylvania Evening Post " of March 5, 1776, is filled 
with '■ Proposals for a Confederation of the United Colonies." It contains seven arti- 
cles. Taxation was to be levied by the assemblies. The colonies, by their assem- 

31 



482 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

pressed in general terms their convictions of the necessity of 
estabhshing a government. Samuel Adams was in favor of 
forming " one government with the consent of the whole, — 
a distinct state composed of all tlie colonies, with a common 
legislature for great and general purposes." John Adams 
stated, as the teaching of the school of Milton, the proposi- 
tion that there was no good government but the republican ; 
and he held that each colony ought to mould its own internal 
government, and that the colonies ought to form " a conti- 
nental constitution for the whole." Joseph Hawley, in a 
series of noble letters addressed to members of the Con- 
gress, urged the formation of " an American supreme 
government wisely devised and designed, well established 
and settled," and suggested that there should be a legis- 
lature with two branches ; remarking that " without such 
a government the colonies would be always like a rope of 
sand, but, with this well done, invincible." Patrick Henry 
was in favor of forming a confederation before making a 
declaration of independence ; and John Dickinson persisted 
in maintaining that the formation of a general government, 
complete in all its parts, ought to precede an assumption by 
the people of their station among sovereigns. 

The voluminous record thus glanced at, the anonymous 
utterances of the press, and the general views of distin- 
guished leaders, may be said to embody the results of a 
discussion of fundamental politics covering fifteen years 
(1761-1776) ; for the intellectual life of the colonies during 
this period spent itself mainly on this noble theme. " There 
had been excited," a British historian remarks, " a spirit of 
inquiry and discussion into the rights of human nature and 
society at large, such as had never been exceeded, if ever 

blies or conventions, were to ratify it before it should be valid. It is said, " The 
New-England colonies, by many years' experience, found great advantages by 
a confederation, in carrying on their wars with the Indians, in treating with neigh- 
boring colonies settled under other States, and in adjusting and settling niattera 
among themselves." This is copied in the " Boston Gazette" of April 22. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 483 

equalled, in any country in Christendom."^ The results of 
this discussion warrant the statement, that the conviction had 
become general, that the civilization which had been planted 
in America demanded for its future a common country ; and 
that the sentiment of nationality and the ideal of a repub- 
lican government were correlative in their development. 

A pressure on Congress to make a declaration of inde- 
pendence began in November, soon after the circulation of 
the memorable proclamation of the king, declaring the 
patriots in rebellion ; but a strong party opposed this step. 
They had John Dickinson as their most distinguished 
leader, who carried with him patriots of the juridical learn- 
ing of James Wilson, the culture and purity of John Jay, 
the sturdy zeal of the Livingstons, and the noble integrity 
of Robert Morris. This party consisted of a few delegates 
from New England, the greater number from the Middle 
Colonies, and about half of the Southern delegation, includ- 
ing two delegates from Virginia. They, generally, looked 
upon the proposed step as premature ; Morris averring that 
it would dissolve the Union. Wilson, on receiving the 
king's speech charging the Americans with aiming at inde- 
pendent empire, moved the appointment of a committee to 
frame an address to meet this allegation. The motion 
alarmed Samuel Adams. He succeeded in having the sub- 
ject postponed, though he could not prevent a day being 
assigned to consider it.^ Wilson was not opposed to inde- 
pendence, but desired that the public mind should first become 
ripe for it, and that the people should confer on their repre- 
sentatives the power to act on so great a question. He 
submitted (February 13) an address designed to prepare the 
way for a separation. " We deem it an honor," are its 
words, " to have raised troops and collected a naval force, 
and, clothed with the authority of the people, from whom all 
legitimate authority proceeds, to have exercised legislative, 

1 Andrews's History of the War, ii. 183. 

2 Wells's Life of Samuel Adams, ii. 358, 



484 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

executive, and judicial powers. . . Though an independent 
empire is not our wish, it may be the fate of our country- 
men. . . . That the colonics may continue connected, as 
they have been, with Britain, is our second wish: our first 
is, that America may be free." ^ The majority of the 
members, however, were opposed to any disclaimer of se[)- 
aration, and in this probably reflected the public sentiment. 
Tiie address was withdrawn. Eight days later Congress 
refused to pass a vote of thanks to Doctor Smith, the provost 
of the college in Pliiladelphia, for his eulogy on General 
Montgomery, because he represented Congress to be in favor 
of continuing in a state of dependence on Great Britain.'^ 
The party in favor of independence had Samuel Adams at 
their head. He had with him nearly all the New-England 
members, a few from the Middle Colonies, the greater 
number from Virginia, and one-half of the other Southern 
members.^ This party received (February 9) an important 
accession in the election in Massachusetts of Elbridge Gerry 
in the place of Cushing. Gerry had long been a zealous, 
trustworthy, and efficient laborer in the cause at home, and 
in Congress he became a hearty co-worker with the Adamses, 
his life-long friends. 

The journals of Congress, during the period from Decem- 
ber to June, consist mainly of records of the military and 
financial transactions which the exigencies of the times 
required. Tlie powers exercised were revolutionary in their 
nature. Among the measures adopted were certain high 
acts of sovereignty, considered essential to secure the object 
for which the Congress was called, — namely, the protection 
of American rights ; and they were justified on the ground 
of necessity. These measures were in the spirit of independ- 
ence, and led directly to it ; but there is no allusion to this 
question in the journals. 

1 Rives's Life and Times of James Madison, ii. 282. 

2 Bancroft, viii. 315. 

8 Interesting statements relative to parties in Congress at this period may be 
found in the Lite and Works of John Adams, i. 212. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 485 

Congress aimed to enlarge the Union. A committee — 
John Adams, George Wythe, and Roger Sherman — re- 
ported in favor of saying to the Canadians that, on joining 
the Union, " they might set up such a government as would 
most likely produce their happiness." This proposition was 
opposed by Jay and others on the ground that it was an 
independency. The report, however, was accepted. ^ Frank- 
lin. Samuel Chase, and Charles Carroll of Carrolton, — a 
bold and fearless patriot of large culture and independent 
fortune, not yet a member of Congress, — were appointed 
commissioners to proceed to Canada and communicate the 
invitation. Their instructions authorize a tender to the 
Canadians of the protection of the Union on the basis of 
an intercommunication of rights, civil and religious,^ — an 
application of the principle of equality between the colonies 
in the Union, which was scrupulously recognized in the revo- 
lutionary period, and wliicli became one of the fundamental 
principles of the American polity. 

Congress ordered the Tories to be disarmed. Samuel 
Adams was zealous in urging this measure. The first action 
(January 6) was liberal, and to the effect that the honest 
and well-meaning, who had been misled by the arts of minis- 
terial agents, ought to be treated with kindness and modera- 
tion ; but that the unworthy, who, regardless of their duty to 
their Creator, their country and posterity, opposed the meas- 
ures formed to preserve American liberty, ought to be dis- 
armed, and the more dangerous be kept in close custody or to 
give sureties for their good behavior. Subsequently (March 
14) the assemblies, conventions, and committees of safety 
were advised to disarm all persons who refused to associate 
for the defence, of the United Colonies. The advice was 

1 Bancroft, viii. 319 

2 The instructions are in the Journals of Congress under the date of ISIarch 20, 
1776. The commissioners were directed to explain to tlie Canadians the method of 
the United Colonies "of collecting the sense of the people and (onducting their 
affairs regularly." 



486 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

resolutely followed. This measure, a statesman remarks, 
never received the attention it deserved.^ 

Congress authorized the equipment of privateers. Frank- 
lin thought that this measure ought to be preceded hy a 
declaration of war, as of one independent nation against 
another;'^ but the majority were not ready for this stand. 
The declaration (March 28) which accompanied the resolves 
cited as a justification a recent Act of Parliament, forbidding 
all trade and commerce with the inhabitants of the United 
Colonies, and making their property when found upon the 
water liable to seizure. The resolves authorize the inhab- 
itants to fit out armed vessels to cruise against their enemies, 
prescribe the forms of the commissions, provide for the 
establishment of admiralty courts and of, rules for the distri- 
bution of prizes. In cases in the Supreme Court, growing 
out of captures inider the commissions that were issued, the 
plea was made that there was no competent authority to 
issue these commissions ; but the court ruled that the Con- 
gress had this power, because it was acquiesced in by the 
majority of the people in every colony.^ 

Congress ordered the ports to be thrown open to all 
nations. This policy was suggested very early in the strug- 
gle, was advocated in the press for years, and at length 
was formally proposed by the Virginia Convention. To-day 
it seems to have been obviously required : then nothing 
seems to have been more difficult. The lion in the path was 

1 Daniel Webster. Address before the New-York Historical Society, 1852, p. 41. 

2 Bancroft, viii. 320. 

8 The opinion of the Supreme Court (1795) in this case contains the following: — ■ 

" Congress was the general, supreme, and controlling council of the nation, the centre 
of union, tlie centre of force, and the sun of the political system. To determine what 
their powers were we must inquire what powers they cxeraised. Congress raised 
armies, fitted out a navy, received and sent ambassadors, and made treaties; Congress 
commissioned privateers to cruise against the enemy, directed what vessels should be 
liable to caiituro, and proscribed rules for the distribution of prizes. These high acts of 
sovereignty were submitted to, acquiesced in, and approved of, by the people of America. 
In Congress were vested, because by Congress were e.xercised with the approbation of 
the people, the rights and powers of war and peace." Penhallow v. Doane's Adminis- 
trators, Curtis's Decisions, i. 87. 



BIRTH OP THE NATION. 487 

attachment to the motlier country and the vaiu hope of 
reconciliation, — the same sentiment that led to the fatal 
policy of short enlistments in the army. This fact appears 
in the debates. Harrison said : " They had hobbled along 
mider a fatal attachment to Great Britain. I felt it," he 
said, " as much as any man, but I feel a stronger attachment 
to my country." Wythe, in referring to the idea of inviting 
foreigners to enter into treaties, asked : " In what character 
shall we treat ? As subjects of Great Britain ? As rebels ? 
Why should we be so fond of calling ourselves dutiful sub- 
jects ? If we should offer our trade to the court of France, 
would they take notice of it any more than if Bristol or 
Liverpool should offer theirs, while we profess to be sub- 
jects ? No. We must declare ourselves a free people." ^ 
To open the ports was to strike a blow at British acts 
of navigation. It was to wound England in her sorest 
place. "Open your ports to foreigners," a member said: 
" your trade will become of so much consequence that 
foreigners will protect you." The sketch of the debate on 
this subject is meagre, but it is sufficient to show that the 
proposal was severely contested : though introduced into 
Congress on the 12th of January, it was not disposed of until 
the 6tli of April. The result was embodied in a series of 
elaborate resolves. One provided that no slaves should be 
imported into the United Colonies ; and another, that certain 
powers relative to trade, exercised by the local committees 
of inspection and safety, should cease.^ 

Congress dealt with foreign powers. In December their 
secret committee of correspondence addressed letters to 
Arthur Lee in London, and Charles Dumas at the Hague, 
requesting them to ascertain the disposition of European 
courts respecting America, enjoining great circumspection 
and secrecy.^ They hoped the most favor from France. 

1 Works of John Adams, ii. 486. 

2 The Resolves of Congress, of April 6, signed "By order of Congress, John 
Hancock," were immediately printed. 

8 The Life of Arthur Lee (i. 53) contains the letter to Lee copied from the original 



488 TUE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Some, however, were opposed to applying for aid to the 
ancient enemy of England. Their feeling was expressed in 
a declaration by Dr. Zubly, of Georgia. " A proposal," he 
said, " has been made to apply to France and Spain. I 
apprehend the man wlio would propose it [to his constit- 
uents] would be torn in pieces like De Witt." ^ Three 
months after these words were spoken in Congress, an emis- 
sary, M. de Bouvouloir, sent by Vergennes, appeared in 
Philadelphia, held secret conferences with the committee, 
and assured them that France was well disposed to aid the 
colonies on just and equitable conditions. ^ A few weeks 
later the committee appointed Silas Deane commercial agent 
for Europe, mainly to procure military supplies, but he was 
instructed (March 3) to say to Vergennes that " there was 
a great appearance that the colonics would come to a total 
separation ; " that France was looked upon as the power 
whose friendship they would most desire to cultivate ; and 
he was instructed to inquire whether, " if the colonies should 
be forced to form themselves into an independent state," 
France would acknowledge them as such and receive their 
ambassadors.^ Here the committee, in the beginning of 
their intercourse with foreign nations, desired it to be under- 
stood that the colonies would treat as one political power, — 
an idea in harmony with the action of the colonies with 
regard to En gland."* 

MSS. in the handwriting of Franlilin. It is dated Dec. 12, 1775, and was signed 
by Franlvlin, Dickinson, and Jay. 

1 WorlvS of John Adams, ii. 459. 

2 De Witt's Jefferson and The American Democracy, 388. This work, printed in 
1862, contains abstracts of the correspondence between the French ministers, Duke 
de Choiseul and Count Vergennes, and the French diplomatic agents on American 
affairs. De Bouvouloir says that the committee met him at an appointed place after 
dark, each going to it by a different road. 

8 Sparks's Diplomatic Correspondence, i. 5. 

■* (lovernor Dunmore, on board a British ship in Elizabeth River, addressed Jan. 
"27, 177G, a letter to Richard Corbin, tendernig his services to Virginia " to procure, by 
any means tliat should be thought most advisable and honorable, permanent, speedy, 
and happy reconciliation between this colony and its parent state." Corbin referred 
this letter to the connnittee of safety, who returned an answer through Edmund Pen- 
dleton. Referring to the last petition of the Continental Congress, they sayr "'If 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 489 

The growing feeling in favor of independence in Congress 
is indicated in a proclamation (March 16) appointing a day 
for a general fast. They invoked Almighty God " to bless 
their civil rulers and the representatives of the peo[ le in 
their several assemblies and conventions, to preserve and 
strengthen their union, and to direct them to the most 
efficacious measures for establishing the rights of the people 
on the most honorable and permanent basis." This tone was 
in marked contrast to that of a similar proclamation in the 
previous June, when Congress implored God " to bless our 
rightful sovereign George III." ; an indication of progress 
that did not pass unnoticed.^ 

The important measures just glanced at, were those of a 
substantially independent government. In April the inquiry 
was made of Franklin, " When is the Continental Congress 
by general consent to be formed into a supreme legislature ? " 
Franklin replied, " Nothing seems wanting but that general 
consent. The novelty of the thing deters some ; the doubt 
of success, others ; the vain hope of reconciliation, many. 
Every day furnishes us with new causes of unceasing enmity 
and new reasons for wishing an eternal separation ; so that 
there is a rapid increase of the formerly small party who 
were for an independent government." " The steps of 
Samuel Adams — certainly the foremost of the popular 
leaders in urging independence — may be followed almost 
daily in the grand service he was rendering the country. 
" Why," he reasoned on the 2d of April, " why not declare 
for independence. Because, say some, it will for ever shut 
the door of reconciliation. Upon what terms will Britain 
be reconciled to America. . . . She will be reconciled upon 
our abjectly submitting to tyranny, and receiving pardon for 

administration are disposed to heal this unnatural wound in the empire, they will 
embrace that occasion, which probably will be the last, for accomplishing it. At all 
events, any other steps to be taken must proceed from the representatives of the con- 
tinent, not from us." — Remembrancer, ii. 358. 

1 In Almou's Remembrancer for 1776 (vol. iii. 176) the two proclamations are 
contrastod. 

2 l''ranldin to Josiah Quincy, April 15, 1776. Sparks's Works, vol. viii. 181. 



490 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

submitting to it. Will this redound to the honor or safety 
of America."^ On the 16th he expressed indignation at the 
plea for the postponement of independence, on the ground 
that commissioners were on their way with new terms, 
saying: " The salvation of the country depends on its being 
done speedily. I am anxious to have it done. Every 
day's delay tries my patience. . . . We are told that com- 
missioners are coming to offer us such terms as we may 
with safety accept of. I am disgusted exceedingly when I 
hear it mentioned. Experience should teach us to pay no 
regard to it. The child Independence is now struggling for 
birth. I trust in a short time it will be brought forth; and, 
in spite of Pharaoh, all America will hail the dignified 
stranger." ^ On the 30th he surveyed the whole field with 
the eye of a statesman, and wove a great deal of philosophy 
into an elaborate sunnnary of salient facts : " The idea 
of independence spreads far and wide among the colonies. 
We cannot make events: our business is wisely to improve 
them. Mankind are governed more by their feelings than 
by reason. The Boston Port Bill suddenly wrought a union 
of the colonies which could not be brought about by the 
industry of years. Since the memorable 17th of June one 
event has brought another on, till America has furnished 
herself with more than seventy battalions for her defence. 
One battle would do more towards the declaration of inde- 
pendence than a long chain of conclusive arguments in a 
provincial convention or the Continental Congress." ^ 

1 Wells's Life of Samuel Adams, ii. 393. 

2 Samuel Adams to James Warren, April 16. MSS. 

8 Samuel Adams to Samuel Cooper, April 30, MSS. The letters of John Adams, 
dated this month, show that he had no more faith in the expected commissioners 
than Samuel Adams had. He wrote April 2: "We continue still between hawk 
and buzzard. Some people yet expect commissioners to treat with Congress and to 
offer a chart blanc. All declare, if they do not come empowered to treat with us and 
grant us our Bill of Rights in every iota, they will hesitate no longer." — Massachu- 
setts Historical Society Proceedings, 1868, p. 208. He wrote April 12: "The ports 
are open wide enough at last, and privateers are allowed to prey upon British trade. 
This is not independency, you know. What is? Why, government in each colony, 
a confederation among them all." He termed this confederation "a continental 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 491 

The next great measure of Congress was the recommen- 
dation to form local governments, based on the power of the 
people. Before relating the proceedings respecting this 
measure, it may be well to glance at the progress in this 
work by several colonies acting under the recommendations 
already given. 

Massachusetts, as before stated, acted promptly in July, on 
the advice of Congress respecting its government, by using 
the old charter. A summons was issued by the Provincial 
Congress for the election of representatives under the exist- 
ing law, " in observance of the resolve of the Continental 
Congress." ^ The representatives convened as an assembly, 
and chose counsellors wdio constituted a co-ordinate branch 
of the legislature, and were also the executive. Regular 
sessions of the legislature were held. In the third session, 
John Adams sat in the council, and was also a]>pointed 
Chief Justice.^ There had been delay in opening the courts. 
As they were about to sit, the government — executive and 
legislative — issued (Jan. 23, 1776) a proclamation drawn 
up by John Adams, enjoining officers and people to use 
their utmost endeavors to have the resolves of the General 



constitution " He wrote April 14: "A more egregious bubble was never blown up 
than the story of commissioners coming to treat with the Congress: yet it has gained 
credit," &c. He wrote on the IGth to Col. Ward: "You seem to wish for independ- 
ence. Do the resolves for privateering and 0| c ingof the ports satisfy you? If not, 
let me know what will ? Will nothing do but a positive declaration that we will 
never be reconciled on any terms V It requires time to bring the colonies all of one 
mind, but time will do it." — Literary World, Sept. 18, 1852. 

1 The proceedings of Massachusetts were printed in the newspapers. The 
"Pennsylvania Evening Post" of July 22, 1775, contains the warrant of Congress 
calling a general assembly. There is tirst the resolve of Congress of June 9, 1775, and 
then the warrant proceeds: "In observance of the (bregoing resolve of the Honorable 
Continental Congress now sitting in Philadelphia, these are to request you forth- 
with to cause the freeholders and other' inhabitants of your town," who had an estate 
of forty shillings per annum or other estate to the value of forty pounds sterling, 
" according to an Act regulating the House of Representatives," to choose representa- 
tives. It w.^s signed as follows : " Given under my hand this nineteenth day of June, 
A.D. 1775. By order of Congress. James Warren, President. Attest, Samuel 
Freeman, Secretary " 

2 John Adams left Congress on the 9th of December, 1775, and resumed his seat 
on the 9th of February, 1776. 



492 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

Congress and the laws of the colony duly executed In 
this paper the controversy with the mother country is briefly 
reviewed ; the position of Massachusetts is stated ; the con- 
sent of the people is declared to be the only foundation of 
government, and the happiness of the people its sole end ; 
and that generation is congratulated " on the acquisition of 
a form of government more immediately in all its branches 
under the influence and control of the people, and therefore 
more free and happy than was enjoyed by their ancestors." 
The proclamation closed with the invocation, " God save the 
People." ^ It was ordered to be read at the opening of every 
court, at the March town-meetings, and by the ministers of 
the gospel on Sundays to their congregations. It was also 
widely circulated in the newspapers. This admirable paper 
was a fit inauguration of the first government in America 
based on the power of the people. It was established at 
Watertown, near Boston, in the midst of hostilities, — 
indeed, almost under the line of fire of the enemy. 

In New Hampshire, the popular party proceeded in their 
political action with dignity, and with forbearance to the 
constituted authorities. The royal governor, Wentworth, 
was greatly respected. He deemed it his duty to enter one 
of the early provincial conventions, when the members rose, 
listened respectfully as he declared the meeting illegal and 
disloyal, and when he retired, resumed their sitting and their 
business. In the progress of events the evils of an absence 
of authority became intolerable ; yet the patriots waited 
several months for the advice of the General Congress, 
before they acted on the matter of establishing a govern- 
ment. When the advice came, the Whigs of the school of 



1 A previous proclaination for a Thanksgiving, Nov. 4, 1775, dosed with "God 
save the People." A Tory, in the "News Letter," printed in Boston, Jan 11, 1776, 
jn an address to the soldiers of the United Colonies, remarked on this close, instead of 
the "heretofore Invariable God save the King." He regarded it a sign that the 
popular leaders meant to deny the authority of the King. " Will it not suffice your 
leaders," he says, "to mock the king, but they must mock Heaven also?" The 
pii ;clamatiou of Jan. 23, 1776, is in the ''Pennsylvania Evening Post" of Feb. 27. 



BIRTH OP THE NATION. 493 

Dickinson, drew from it the inference that Congress were in 
favor of independence, and said tliat this would be ruinous,^ 
The majority, however, summoned a convention to meet at 
Exeter, and to consist of delegates to be elected under the 
existing laws providing for the choice of representatives. 
This body framed a constitution, which was adopted in the 
following terms: "In Congress at Exeter, Jan. 5, 1776, 
voted, that this Congress take up civil government in this 
colony in manner and form following," — consisting of 
provisions for the executive, legislative, and judiciary de- 
partments. In this way, even the forms of royal authority 
were done away; and, in the words of the preamble, a consti- 
tution was established by "the free suffrages of the people." ^ 
In South Carolina, the circumstances were peculiar. The 
population was " a medley of different nations and com- 
posed of the most contradictory characters ; " it had doubled 
in ten years ; wealth had poured in upon the colony from a 
thousand channels ; and all ranks and orders gloried in their 
attachment to the mother country.^ Throughout this period 
of rare prosperity, the popular party, constituting a majority, 
entered with generous enthusiasm into the measures, in op- 
position to the aggressions of the British administration. 
When the issue passed from commercial war to armed 
resistance, and the question of independence arose, the rela- 

1 The "New-Hampshire Gazette" of Jan. 9, 1776, contains an elaborate piece 
against a declaration of independence, addressed "To the Congress at Exeter." 
The writer warns this body that the Continental Congress were in favor of independ- 
ence, saying: " \Ve began the controversj' on this principle, to seek redress of griev- 
ances: since we have lost sight of the object, and are in qnest of what will most 
certainly terminate in our ruin and destruction, — I mean independency." One of 
the grounds on which the writer relied for this conclusion was, that "the grand 
Congress," on an application from this province, recommend'^d to them to assum* 
"a new form of government." An instance of the deference felt in this colony to 
the Congress has been given on page 422. John Sullivan, Dec. 12, 1773, writes: 
"I hear that the Continental Congress has given our province a power to assume 
government." 

2 The form of government was printed in the newspapers m full. It is in the 
"New-England Chronicle" of Feb. 1, 1776, and "Pennsylvania Ledger" of Feb. 
10. 

8 Ramsay's Revolution in South Carolina, i. 7. 



494 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

tive state of the parties was changed. It is estimated that 
half of the population were opposed to a separation. The 
government in February, 1776, was vested in a Provincial 
Congress. The President, William Henry Drayton, in a 
speech (February 9) occasioned by the return of two of the 
delegates of the General Congress, warmly thanked them 
for their service. In doing this, he enumerated their acts, 
mentioning, — the " permission granted to colonies to erect 
forms of government independent of and in opposition 
to the regal authority." On that day a committee was 
appointed to consider the recommendation given by Con- 
gress to South Carolina, on the 4th of November, to form a 
government. On the next day Christopher Gadsden arrived, 
and also received the thanks of his constituents. He urged 
not only the formation of a government, but independence. 
The debate was earnest. Both measures were warmly 
opposed. The Congress voted (February 11) that the ex- 
isting establishment " was entirely inadequate to the well- 
governing the good people of the province." On the next 
day (Sunday) a committee was appointed to prepare a plan. 
On the 24th of March they reported a final draft of a consti- 
tution, which, though opposed by a strong party that included 
Rawlins Lowndes, was ordered to be fairly engrossed upon 
royal paper. On the 26th of March it was adopted. It is 
entitled " a constitution or form of government agreed to, and 
resolved upon, by the representatives of South Carolina." 
It provided for the executive and legislative branches, and 
went at once into effect. The Provincial Congress resolved 
themselves into an Assembly.^ When the officers were 
inaugurated, with John Rutledge as the President, there was 
in Cliarleston an imposing parade, with universal expressions 

1 Journal of the Proceedings. This was printed in Charleston in 1776, and 
reprinted in London. It is in Force's Archives, 4th Series, v. 5G2. Ramsay says, 
p. 81: " Tlie formation of an independent constitution had so much the appearance 
of an eternal separation from a country by a reconciliation with which many yet 
hoped for a return of ancient happiness, tliat a preat part of the Provincial Coiin;ress 
opposed the measure. The Act of Parliament of December 21, throwing the colonies 
out of protection, turned the scale." 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 495 

of joy.^ Tlie government, remarks Ramsay, " rested on this 
fundamental point, — that the voice of the people was the 
source of law, honor, and office." When the courts were 
opened, the Chief Justice, William Henry Drayton, deliv- 
ered a famous charge, embodying the spirit of the time ; 
and, at the close of the session of the legislature, the gov- 
ernor in a spirited address was in harmony with Massa- 
chusetts as he said, "The consent of the people is the 
origin, and their happiness is the end, of government." 

It is not material that the people in the three colonies 
just glanced at, had not abandoned the hope of recon- 
ciliation, or that a permanent government had not been 
formed. They had exercised the right of establishing 
public authority in all its branches. On law derived from 
the ])C0})le the municipalities now rested. Their functions 
can hardly be said to have been disturbed. Indeed, in all the 
colonies they were in healthy activity ; they never before or 
since performed more important service : and they consti- 
tuted the foundations on which the American builders pro- 
ceeded to erect their superstructure. 

The results reached in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, 
and South Carolina, were warmly welcomed by the patriots, 
and other colonies were enjoined to follow in the same 
course. " I wish," one writes, " to see the hands of the 
Continental Congress strengthened by a regular system of 
government in each colony." ^ The Tories and the repre- 

1 The "New-England Chronicle" of May 2 contains the following, under date 
of Charleston, April 3: — 

" On Thursday last the new Constitution, agreed upon by our Congress, by the 
npprobatiou of the Continental Congress, ' to serve for regulating the internal policy 
of this colony until an accommodation of the unhappy differences between Great Brit- 
ain and America can be obtained, an event wliich is earnestly desired,' was published 
here in duo form. A detachment of the Provincial regiment of artillery and the 
Charleston militia were drawn up in Broad Street from the State House to the Ex- 
change, where the Constitution was read, and the commissions of John Rutledge, Esq., 
President and Commander-in-Chief, and Henry Laurens, Esq., Vice-President of the 
Colony, were proclaimed, amidst the shouts of the numerous spectators, firing of field- 
pieces, and the cannon on board the provincial armed vessels." 

2 "I wish to see the confusion of Bunker's Hill avoided betimes. I wish to see 
the hards of the Continental Congress (who have too much to do to regulate the 



496 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

sentatives of the proprietary interests in the Middle Colonies 
vehemently opposed this change. The bitterness between 
the contending parties increased. " The passions," wrote 
John Adams (April 28), "were never in more lively exercise 
than they now are, from Florida to Canada inclusive." ^ 
Nowhere were they more lively than in the colony, city, and 
building in which Congress held its sessions ; for some of 
the colonial conventions met in a room over their heads. 

In the centre of this political whirl. Congress matured the 
action just referred to, respecting local governments. The 
nearest approach to an application for advice on this head, was 
a request preferred by a few zealous Whigs of New York for 
leave to this colony to form a government. It was expressed 
in a letter addressed to John Adams.^ He now began to 
take the station to which his earnestness in the cause, legal 
erudition, intellectual vigor, and superior powers of debate 
entitled him.^ He submitted, on the 6th of May, in com- 
mittee of the whole, a resolve recommending to all the colo- 
nies, where it should be considered necessary, to form such 
governments as might conduce to their happiness in partic- 
ular and tliat of America in general, — which was agreed to 
on the 9tli of May, and reported to Congress. On the 
request of a colony, it was postponed until the next day, 
when it was adopted. 

A committee * was appointed to prepare a preamble to 
accompany this resolve. They reported a draft drawn up 
by John xidams. It declared that it was absolutely irrecon- 

affairs of everj' colony) strengthened by a regular system of government in each 
colony. . . . New Hampshire and Massachusetts have gone before us, and the rest 
must speedily follow. ... I would by no means have this step taken without con- 
sulting the Continental Congress. Let us lay our case before them, as did the people 
of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Let us beg their advice and approbation. 
They advised and approved of the proceedings of the last-mentioned colonies. " — 
Pennsylvania Packet, April 15, 177G. 

i Letters of John Adams to his Wife, i. 106. 

2 Compare the letter in Gordon, ii. 209, with the letter of John Adams in his 
Works, ix. 407. 

8 Life and Works of John Adams, i. 212. 

* The committee were John Adams, Edward Rutledge, and Richard Henry Lee. 



BIRTH OP THE NATION. 497 

cilable with the conscience and reason of the people now to 
take the oaths to support a government under the crown, 
that all such ought to be suppressed, and government estab- 
lished on the power of the people ; and it adduced as a 
justification, that the king, lords, and commons had excluded 
the inhabitants of the United Colonies from protection. An 
exciting debate followed the submission of this report. 
Duane, of New York, in opposition said: "You have no 
more right to pass the resolve than Parliament has. How 
does it appear that no favorable answer is likely to be given 
to our petitions ? Every account of foreign aid is accom- 
panied with the account of commissioners. Why all this 
haste? Why this urging? Why this driving? Disputes 
about independence are in all the colonies. What is this 
owing to but our indiscretion. I shall take the liberty of 
informing my constituents that I have not been guilty of a 
breach of trust. I do protest against this piece of mechan- 
ism, — this preamble. If the facts in this preamble should 
prove to be true, there will not be one voice against inde- 
pendence. I suppose the votes have been numbered, and 
there is to be a majority." Wilson, of Pennsylvania, rea- 
soned that all government originates from the people ; that 
the members were the servants of the people sent to act 
under delegated authority ; that, if they exceeded it, they 
deserved neither excuse nor justification ; and that he had 
no authority to vote for this preamble. "If it passes," he 
said, " there will be an immediate dissolution of every kind 
of authority." In favor of the preamble, McKean, of Dela- 
ware, said : " Don't doubt that foreign mercenaries are 
coming here to destroy us;" and he held that the people 
would lose their liberties, properties, and lives, unless this 
step were taken. Samuel Adams said that_tlie_petitions 
had not been heard, and yet had been answered -by armies 
and flectsj that they were answered also by myrmidons 
from abroad ; and that they could not act upon stronger 
reasons than that the king has thrown the colonies out of his 

32 



498 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

protection. " Why." he said, " should we support govero 
ineiit by his authority ? I wonder that the people have con- 
ducted themselves so well as they have." ^ The preamble 
was adopted on the Fifteenth of May, and, with the resolu- 
tion, was ordered to be printed. 

The resolution and preamble were the decision of the polit- 
ical power, or the United Colonies, that the time had come 
to abrogate all public authority exercised in them in the 
name of the sovereignty symbolized by the crown, and to 
establish in each colony such authority on the basis of a 
sovereignty residing in the free and independent man or 
tlie people.^ This was revolution.^ The Resolution became 
the platform of the popular party, — the touchstone of 
fidelity; and, embodying as it did the will of the majority, 
they were bound to maintain it against all opposers. It 
appears at once in the front of the most exciting political 

^ Life and Works of John Adams, ii. 490, 491. The resolution was printed on 
the 16th of May, 1776, in the " Pennsylvania Evening Post," as follows: — 

In Congress, May 15, 1776. 

Whereas his Britannic Majesty, in conjunction with tbe Lords and Commons of 
Great Britain, has, by a late Act of Parliament, excluded the inhabitants of those United 
Colonies from the protection of his crown. And whereas no answer whatever, to the 
humble petitions of the colonies for redress of grievances and reconciliation with Great 
Britain, has been, or is likely to be given; but the whole force of that kingdom, aided 
by foreign mercenaries, is to be exerted for the destruction of the good people of these 
colonies. And whereas it appears absolutely irreconcilable to reason and good con- 
science for the people of these colonies noiv to take the oaths and affirmations neces- 
sary for the support of any government under the crown of Great Britain; and it is 
necessary that the exercise of every kind of authority under the said crown should be 
totally suppressed, and all the powers of government exerted under the authority of 
the people of the colonies for the preservation of internal peace, virtue, and good 
order, as well as for the defence of our lives, liberties, and properties, against the hos- 
tile invasions and cruel depredations of their enemies. Therefore 

Resolved, That it be recommended to the respective Assemblies and Conventions of 
the Umted Colonies, where no government sufficient to the exigencies of their aflairs 
has been hitherto established, to adopt such government as shall, in the opinion of tlie 
representatives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their con- 
stituents in particular and America in general. 

By order of Congress. John Hancock, President. 

2 See pages 421-427. 

8 "What is revolution? Why, that is revolution which overturns, or controls, m 
successfully resists the existing public authority; that which arrests the exercise of 
the supreme power; that which introduces a new paramount authority into the rule 
of the State." — Works of Daniel Webster, iii. 459. 



BTRTH OF THE NATION. 499 

action, and thus played an important part in the formative 
process of the country. 

It liappened that on tlie 15th of May a great popular 
movement also reached a decisive result. This bore directly 
on independence, demanded in November by a few, in Jan- 
uary by only a small party, but in March by a public opinion 
becoming every day more importunate. This change was by 
no means unrepresented in Congress, which was paving the 
way to independence ; ^ but the proceedings with this in 
view — the instructions, for instance, to Silas Deane — were 
necessarily secret, and hence the opponents of the measure 
were enabled to say that " Congress had never lisped the 
least desire for independence or republicanism." ^ Then 
the Assemblies of the Middle Colonies, so far from recall- 
ing their instructions against independence, in some cases 
renewed them. Above all other considerations was the 
question of power to act on so grave and irrevocable a step 
as a separation ; for the power delegated was simply to 
mature such action as would obtain a redress of grievances 
under the existing government. 

While Congress was hesitating, " A Lover of Order," on 
the 9th of March, proposed through the newspapers that 
the constituents of each delegation should be invited to 
declare their sentiments on independence through their local 
organizations ; remarking that in this manner the continent 

1 Joseph Reed (Reed's Reed, i. 164) writes March 3: " The Congress are paving 
the way to a declaration of independence, but I believe will not make it until the 
minds of the people are better prepared for it than as yet they are." 

2 The " New-York Gazette " of April 8, 1776, contains a paper entitled " Plan of 
the American Compact.'' It was designed to keep the colonies united with England. 
It is characterized as a " Compact of Reconciliation." The writer asks, " For what 
are we to encounter the horrors of war," &c. ? He answers: "It is a form of 
government which Baron Montesquieu and the best writers on the subject have 
shewn to be attended with many mischiefs and imperfections, while they pass high 
encomiums on the excellency of the British Constitution. But why should I dwell 
on the dangers of this scheme? The Continental Congress have never lisped the 
least desire for independency or republicanism. All their publications breathe 
another spirit." This plan was reprinted in a pamphlet entitled "Observations on 
the Reconciliation of Great Britain and the Colonies," &c., written by a Whig of 
the Dickinson school, and printed in Philadelphia, 1776, by Robert BelL 



500 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

first declared their determination to resist by force the 
power of Great Britain, and in so important a question 
the Congress ought only to echo back the sentiments of the 
people, and their decision ought to determine the question. ^ 
This course might have been agreed upon in one of the 
consultations of the popular leaders, and preferred to a 
proposition which John Adams probably intended to submit 
in Congress, with the view of procuring a repeal or a sus- 
pension of the instructions against independence.^ How- 
ever this may have been, it was in harmony with the political 
genius of the country to collect the sense of the people on so 
great a question. It tended to keep armed resistance to 
constituted authority in the line of order, to secure co- 
operation, and to guide passion in its wildest mood with 
much of the regularity of law. It corresponded with the 
work done ; for, as no colony formed a local government 
until Congress recommended it to be done, so no delega- 
tion voted for a declaration of independence until authorized 
by its constituents. 

Members of Congress soon after requested their Assem- 

1 The following is the piece alluded to in the text. It is in the Boston news- 
papers of April 1. It is here copied from the "Pennsylvania Evening Post" of 
March 9, 1776 — 

Mr. Towne, — It is the opinion of many people among us that the Congress 
should not declare the colonies independent of Great Britain, without a previous recess 
to consult their constituents about that important question. But the complicated and 
increasing business of the Congress will not admit of such a recess. Would it not 
be proper, therefore, for their constituents to. declare their sentiments upon that head 
as soon as possible? This may be done by the various committees and conventions on 
the continent. Their votes or resolves should determine the question in the Congress. 
It was in this manner the continent first declared their determination to resist by 
force the power of the British Parliament. The first Congress w.is nothing but the 
echo of committees and conventions. In the present important question concerning 
Independence, the Congress should, as in the former case, only echo back the senti- 
ments of the people. This can only be done through the medium of committees and 
conventions. The sooner, therefore, they are convened for th.at purpose the better. 

A Lover of Order. 

2 The proposition referred to in the text is in the Life and Works of John Adams, 
i. 216. No date is given. The purport of a preamble and resolve was to recommend 
to the assemblies which had limited the powers of tlieir delegates "to repeal or sus- 
pend those instructions for a certain time," that Congress might have the power to 
act according to its discretion. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 501 

blies to express their sentiments on independence. Elbridge 
Gerry, on the 26th of March, wrote to the speaker of the 
Massachusetts Assembly as follows : " This [opening the 
ports] will not in itself satisfy you; and I hope nothing 
will, short of a determination of America to hold her rank 
in the creation, and give law to herself. ... I sincerely 
wish you would originate instructions expressed with decency 
and firmness, and give your sentiments as a court in favor 
of independency. I am certain it would turn many doubtful 
minds, and produce a reversal of the contrary instructions 
adopted by some Assemblies. Some timid minds are terri- 
fied at the word ' independence.' If you think caution in 
this respect good policy, change the name. America has 
gone such lengths she cannot recede."^ Richard Henry 
Lee (April 20) urged Patrick Henry to propose a separation 
in the convention which was about to assemble in Virginia, 
remarking : " Ages yet unborn and millions existing at 
present may rue or bless that Assembly on which their hap- 
piness or misery will so eminently depend." ^ Subsequently 
members from New York, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, 
and Maryland, — among them the venerable Stephen Hop- 
kins, — appealed to their constituents for instructions on 
independence. 

The facts just stated may account for the movement 
respecting independence which, on the 15th of May, reached 
a result that gave a decisive turn to the course of events. 
The procedure in eacli colony is so important that it 
deserves to be given in full ; but the narratives must neces- 
sarily be much abridged. They may, however, serve to 
show the source of the local streams, and how they came 
together, and formed a current wide, deep, and irresistible 
in its flow. 

1 Life of Elbridge Gerry, i. 174. He did not ask instructions to enable the 
Massachusetts delegates to act, for they were fully empowered by their commissions. 
He suggests the publication of any instructions which the Assembly might adopt, 
in order to influence public sentiment. 

2 Grigsby's Discourse on " The Convention of 1776," p. S. 



602 THE EISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

North Carolina "svas the first colony to act as a unit in 
favor of independence. It was the fourth in importance of 
the United Colonies. Its Provincial Congress had organized 
the militia, and vested the public authority in a provincial 
council for the whole colony, committees of safety for the 
districts, and county and town committees. A large portion 
of the people were adherents of the crown, — among them a 
body of Highland emigrants, and most of the party of regTi- 
lators. Governor Martin represented, not without grounds,^ 
that, if these loyalists were supported by a British force, 
the colony might be gained to the royal side. The loyalists 
were also numerous in Georgia and South Carolina. Hence 
it was determined by the King to send an expedition to the 
Southern Colonies in the winter, to restore the royal author- 
ity .^ This was put under the command of Sir Henry Clin- 
ton, and ordered to rendezvous at Cape Fear. " I am clear," 
wrote George III., "the first attempt should be made on 
North Carolina, as the Highland settlers are said to be well 
inclined." ^ Commissions were issued to men of influence 
among them, one being Allan McDonald, the husband of 
the chivalrous Flora McDonald, who became famous by 
romantic devotion to Prince Charles Edward. Donald 
McDonald was appointed the commander. These officers, 
under the direction of the governor, after much secret 
consultation, enrolled about fifteen hundred men. The pop- 
ular leaders, however, were informed of their designs. The 
militia were summoned, and took the field under Colonel 
James Moore. At length, when Sir Henry Clinton was 

1 In Anson County, Governor Martin had 227 loyal addresses ; in Guilford County 
116; in Rowan and Surry, 195. — Sabine's American Loyalists, 27. 

2 Lord George Germain, in a despatch to Governor Eden of Maryland, dated 
Dec. 23, 1775, says: "An armament consisting of seven regiments, with a fleet of 
frigates and small ships, is now in readiness to proceed to the Southern Colonies, in 
order to attempt the restoration of legal government in that part of America. It 
will proceed in the tirst place to North Carolina, and from thence either to South 
Carolina it Virginia, as circumstances of greater or less advantage shall point out." 
This despatch was intercepted, and printed in the " Pennsylvania Evening Post " of 
April 23, 1776. 

8 Correspondence of George III., i. 276. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 503 

expected at Cape Fear, General McDonald erected the royal 
standard at Cross Creek, now Fayetteville, and moved for- 
ward to join Clinton. Colonel Moore ordered parties of the 
militia to take post at Moore's Creek Bridge, over which 
McDonald would be obliged to pass. Colonel Richard Cas- 
well was at the head of one of these parties : hence the force 
here was under his command : and this place on the 27th 
of February became a famous battle-field. The Provincials 
were victorious. They captured a great quantity of military 
sui)plies, nearly. nine hundred men, and their commander. ^ 
This was the Lexington and Concord of that region. The 
newspapers circulated the details of this brilliant result. 
The spirit of the Whigs run high. " You never," one 
writes, " knew the like in your life for true patriotism." ^ 
A strong force was soon ready and anxious to meet Clinton. 
Amidst these scenes, the people elected delegates to a Pro 
viucial Congress, which met, on the 4th of April, at Halifax. 
It embraced many eminent patriots, among whom were 
Cornelius Harnett, called the Samuel Adams of North Caro- 
lina, William Hooper, who had read law with James Otis, 
Ricliard Caswell, a member of the General Congress. At- 
tempts were made to ascertain the sense of the people on 
independence. It was said that in some of the counties 
fondness for the King was gone, and that there was not a 
dissentient voice. It was not stated that in other counties 
the majority was largely on the side of the crown. The 
subject was referred to a committee, of which Cornelius 
Harnett was the chairman. They reported an elaborate 
preamble in which was delineated the war which the King 
and Parliament were carrying on against the colonies, and 
a resolution to empower the delegates in the General Con- 
gress " to concur with the delegates in the other colonies 

1 The "Pennsylvania Evening Post" of March 23 has Colonel Moore's long 
relation in his letter of March 2, addressed to Cornelius Harnett, Caswell's account, 
and the correspondence between Moore and McDonald. They were copied by the 
Massachusetts papers. 

2 Letter in " Pennsylvania Evening Post," March 26, 1776. 



604 THE EISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

in declaring independency and forming foreign alliances, — 
reserving to the colony the sole and exclusive 'right of 
forming a constitution and laws for it," also " of appointing 
delegates in a general representation of the colonies for such 
purposes as might be agreed upon." This was unanimously 
adopted on the 12th of April. ^ Thus the popular party 
carried North Carolina as a unit in favor of independence, 
when the colonies, from New England to Virginia, were in 
solid array against it. The example was warmly welcomed 
by the patriots, and commended for imitation. The bold 
instructions and the military triumph were the sequence 
of the king's expedition. The royal indignation was soon 
(May 5, 1776) embodied in a proclamation declaring a 
rebellion in North Carolina, but promising pardon to all 
who would return to tlieir duty, except Cornelius Harnett 
and Robert Howe. Harnett was the foremost actor in the 
movement for independence, and Howe, having accepted a 
military commission from the Provincial Congress, was 
rendering noble service in the field. 

Rhode Island acted next on independence. Its people were 
satisfied with their charter. Under it they elected their 
rulers and made the laws. A portion, not inconsiderable 
in number, were adherents of the crown ; and the measure 
of independence had strong opponents. Their venerable 
delegate in Congress, Stephen Hopkins, requested implicit 
instructions on this head. On the 4th of May the Assembly, 
on his re-election and the election of William Ellery, adopted 
the form of a commission, empowering them to consult on 
"promoting the strictest union and confederation" between 
the United Colonies ; and to secure their rights, whetlier by 
forming treaties, or " by such other prudent and effectual 
means " as might be agreed upon, "taking the greatest care 
to secure to this colony, in the strongest and most perfect 
manner, its present established form and all the powers of 
government so far as it relates to its internal police and 

1 This paper, in the newspapers, was signed James Green, Jun., Secretary. 



BIRTH OP THE NATION. 505 

conduct of its own aflfairs, civil and religious." Independ- 
ence is not named in this document ; but Governor Cooke 
advised the delegates that by it they would know that they 
had the power to vote for this measure. They acted on this 
interpretation of their commission. Another Act of the 
same date provided that all commissions, writs and pro- 
cesses in the courts, issued in the king's name, should be 
issued in the name of " The Governor and Company of the 
English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Planta- 
tions." The Act enumerated the measures that justified 
disowning allegiance to the king. This concerned their 
local status. The commission bore directly, and with intel- 
ligence, on the relation which Rhode Island as a community 
was to sustain in an American Republic. This, however, 
was kept secret. It roused no enthusiasm, and made no 
mark.^ 

Massachusetts was the next to act on independence. The 
popular party were in great exultation. The British army 
in March was driven from Boston, the government was in 
the hands of the people, and the Tories had emigrated or 
were powerless. In May the legislature was in session at 
Watertown. On the 1st of this month the member of the 
largest influence, Joseph Hawley, wrote to Elbridge Gerry : 
" The Tories dread a declaration of independence, and a 
course of conduct on that plan, more than death. . . . My 
hand and heart are full of it. There will be no abiding union 
without it. . . . Without a real continental government, our 
army will overrun us ; and people will by and by, sooner than 
you may be aware of, call for their old constitutions, as they 

1 The commission was read in Congress, May 14, and is printed in the Journals, 
ii. 163, It was not printed at the time. Stephen Hopkins, — at this time a member 
of the Rhode Island Assembly, Chief Justice, and member of Congress, — May 15, 
wrote to Governor Cooke: " Your favor of the 7th of May I have received, and the 
papers enclosed. I observe j'ou have avoided giving me a direct answer to my 
queries concerning dependence or independence. However, the copv of the Act 
which you have sent me, together with our instructions, leave me little room to 
doubt it," &c. Force's Archives, 4th Series, vi. 407. The act relating to civil pro- 
cesses was printed in the newspapers. 



506 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

did in England, after Cromwell's death, call in Charles the 
Second. For God's sake, let there be a full revolution, or 
all has been done in vain. Independency and a well-planned 
continental government will save us. God bless you. 
Amen and amen." ^ These ringing words expressed the voice 
of the people. The House sent to the Council a resolution 
on independence, which that body negatived, chiefly on the 
ground that the colony had long been charged with dicta- 
tion, and that to legislate on independence before Congress 
acted would injure the cause .^ Both branches agreed (May 
1) to an Act providing that on and after the 1st of Jmie all 
civil processes, instead of being issued in the name of the 
king and bearing the date of a reign, should be issued in the 
name of the government and people of Massachusetts, and 
bear the date of the year of the Christian era, the act to 
continue in force until a recommendation of " Congress or 
Act of a general American legislature, or the local legis- 
lature, should otherwise prescribe."^ Both branches also 



1 Life of Elbridge Geny, i. 176. On the same day (May 1) Gerry (Ibid., i. 178) 
wrote to James Warren: "I am glad you approve of the proposal for instructions, 
dnd can with pleasure inform you that North Carolina has taken off from their dele- 
gates the restriction relative to this matter; " i.e., independence. 

2 Dr. Samuel Cooper, in a letter to Samuel Adams, May 1-3, says of a resolution 
of the House. " The House sent up the vote to the Council for their concurrence. 
The propriety of this was doubted by some, who did not think the Council could 
properly act on such an affair. It was however done, and the Council negatived the 
vote. Mr. Gushing, among others, was against it. He said that it would embarrass 
the Congress, that we ought to wait until they moved the question to us, that it 
would prejudice the other colonies against us, and that you had wrote to somebody 
here that things with you were going on slowly and surely, and any kind of eager- 
ness in us upon this question would do hurt." — MSS. 

3 This Act was printed in 1S62 in a pamphlet, with a facsimile, by Henry B. 
Dawson, in which it is entitled "Declaration of Independence of the Colon}' of 
Massachusetts Bay " Arnold (History of Rhode Island, ii. 37.3) attaches like im- 
portance to a similar Act of Rhode Island passed on the 4th of Ma)% saying: " It 
established Rhode Island as an independent State two months before the general 
declaration of the United Colonies." These wei'e important Acts, but assuredly not 
declarations of independence. Joseph Hawley was not pleased with the wording of 
the Act. He said (May 17) in a letter to Samuel Adams: " I wish we had adopted 
a shorter, more noble, popular, and rational a style. . . . However, the dropping 
the title of George III., &c., is no small attainment. The retaining it created no 
small uneasiness among our good people of common sense." — MSS. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 507 

agreed on a test Act, which required all " to defend by arms 
the United Colonies and every part thereof" against the 
fleets and armies of Great Britain. ' The House proceeded 
separately on the question of independence. On the lOtL 
of May it voted, that the towns ought to call meetings to 
determine Avhether, if Congress should declare the colonies 
independent of Great Britain, the inhabitants " would sol- 
emnly engage with their lives and fortunes to support them 
in the measure." ^ In pursuance of this call, during May 
and June meetings were held in the towns, in which inde- 
pendence was discussed and votes to sustain it were passed ; 
sometimes accompanied by elaborate papers, going over the 
history of the colony and the list of American grievances. 
Wrentham declared that reconciliation had become as dan- 
gerous as it was absurd. Palmer could see no alternative 
but inevitable ruin or independence. Maiden (May 27) 
voted, " That the present age will be deficient in their duty 
to God, to their posterity and themselves, if they do not 
establish an American Republic." Acton (June 17), using 
these words ^ of Maiden, added : " If Congress should de- 
clare America to be a free and independent republic," they 
would defend the measure with tlieir lives and fortune." 
In tliis way, from the battle-fields of Lexington and Con- 
cord, from the ruins at the base of Bunker Hill, from Faneuil 
Hall, from a hundred villages aglow with patriotic fires, 



1 The resolve was as follows: "In the House of Representatives, May 10, 1776. 
Resolved, as the opinion of this House, that the inhabitants of each town in this Col- 
ony ought, in full meeting warned for that purpose, to advise the person or persons 
who shall be chosen to represent them in the next General Court, whether that, if 
the honorable Congress should, for the safety of the said colonies, declare them 
independent of the kingdom of Great Britain, they, the said inhabitants, will 
solemnly engage, with their lives and fortunes, to support them in the measure. 
Samuel Freeman, Speaker. Attest, William Story, Clerk TJroieiw." It is a singular 
coincidence that on this 10th of May Congr -ss agreed to the resolution prepared by 
John Adams advising the formation of local governments, and the committee of 
Charlotte County, Virginia, instructed its delegates to vote for independence. 

'^ The instructions of Maiden and Boston were the earliest I have found in the 
newspapers. Those of twenty-three towns may be found in Force's Archives, 4th 
Series, 698-707. 



508 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

went forth the pledge of determined and stern men to 
support such a declaration as Congress might make with 
their fortunes and their lives. " The whole province," said 
Pittsfield, " are waiting for the important moment which 
they in their great wisdom shall appoint for the declaration 
of independence and a free republic." ^ 

Virginia was profoundly agitated on the question of inde- 
pendence. The royal governor, Dunmore, had taken refuge 
with the British fleet. The House of Burgesses, summoned 
by him, held several sessions, and finally dissolved them- 
selves. The political power resided in a convention consist- 
ing of delegates chosen by those qualified to elect Burgesses. 
The delegates were re-elected in pursuance of an ordinance 
of their own making. " It was," Tucker says, " the great 
body of the people assembled in the persons of their deputies 
to consult for the common good and to aid in all things for 
the safety of the people." ^ They had organized the militia, 
and appointed a committee of safety to act in the recess as 
the executive. They did not immediately comply with the 
recommendation of Congress in December to form a govern- 
ment. This procedure was looked upon generally as in the 
direction of independence, if not as independence itself, 
which then a few only in the colony regarded with favor. 
" The convention of August, 1774," says an eminent author- 
ity, "had met and adjourned; the convention of March, of 
July, and of December, 1775, had alsa met and adjourned 
without the expression of a single opinion in favor of inde- 
pendence." ^ It had, however, been urged in the Virginia 

1 Hawley, June 12 (Life of Gerry, i. 186), wrote : " About two-thirds of the towns 
in the colony had met, and all instructed in the affirmative, and generally returned 
to be unanimous." These returns were made to a new house convened on 2d of 
June, which, on the 3d of Ju\y, in a brief letter addressed to the Massachusetts dele- 
gates, stated that independence "was almost the universal voice of this colony " 
collected from far the greater number of the towns. The letter concludes: "This 
House therefore do, by a unanimous vote, submit this letter to be made use of as 
you shall think proper." — JIassachusetts Archives, Ivii 284. 

2 Tucker's Blackstone, i part 1, 88. 

8 Grigsb}', Discourse on "The Virginia Convention of 1776," p, 7. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 509 

press. There soon followed the victory of the militia on 
the 9th of December at the Great Bridge ; the burning of 
Norfolk on the 1st of January ; and the publication of an 
intercepted despatch of Lord Germain, explaining the bold 
rising of the Tories of North Carolina, and naming Virginia 
as the theatre of future operations.^ There was a sudden 
change in public sentiment ; and the idea of independence, 
said to be alarming to Virginians in March,^ was welcome to 
them in April. One writes on the 2d : " Independence is 
now the talk here. ... It will be very soon, if not already, 
a favorite child." Another, on the 12th, writes : " I think 
almost every man, except the treasurer, is willing to declare 
for independency." ^ Only eleven days later, on the 23d, 
the Charlotte-County Committee published this charge to 
their delegates in convention : " By the unanimous appro- 
bation and direction of the whole freeholders, and all the 
other inhabitants of this County, ... we give it to you in 
charge to use your best endeavors that the delegates which 
are sent to the General Congress be instructed immediately 
to cast off the British yoke ; and as King George, under the 
character of a parent, persists in behaving as a tyrant, that 
they, in our behalf, renounce allegiance to him for ever ; and 
that taking the God of Heaven to be our king, and depend- 
ing on His assistance and protection, they plan out that form 
of government which may most effectually secure to us the 
enjoyment of our civil and religious rights and privileges to 
the latest posterity." * On the next day, a majority of the 
freeholders of James City, remarking that reasons drawn 
from justice, policy, and necessity were everywhere at hand 
for a radical separation from Great Britain, instructed their 

1 This despatch (see p. 502) directed Governor Eden to co-operate with Lord Dun- 
more. It is named in the proceedings of Charlotte County. 

2 .Joseph Reed in Philadelphia writes Washington, March 15: "It is said the 
Virginians are so alarmed with the idea of independence that they have sent Mr. 
Braxton on purpose to turn the vote of that colony." — Reed's Reed, i. 173. 

8 See papers in "Southern Literary Messenger," September and October, 1858. 
* This paper is in the "Pennsylvania Evenmg Post" of May 21, under the 
heading " Williamsburg, May 10." 



510 THE EISE OP THE REPUBLIC, 

delegates " to exert their utmost abilities in the next conven- 
tion towards dissolving the connection between America and 
Great Britain, totally, finally, and irrevocably." ^ Bucking- 
ham County was in favor of a constitution providing for a 
full representation, and a government the most free, happy, 
and permanent that human wisdom could contrive. Augusta 
County added, "one that might bear the test of future ages." 
In May the avowals for independence were numerous. In 
this spirit and with such aims, a new convention was chosen, 
and on the 6th of May met in Williamsburg. It contained 
illustrious men, — among them, James Madison, in the 
twenty-fifth year of his age ; George Mason, in the maturity 
of his great powers ; Richard Bland, Edmund Pendleton, 
and Patrick Henry, rich in Revolutionary fame.^ The 
President, Pendleton, in opening the session, said tliat 
almost all the powers of government had been suspended for 
two years; and he asked whether the colony could longer 
maintain the struggle in that situation. On the 14th of May 
the convention went into a committee of the whole on the 
state of the colony, with Archibald Carey in the chair ; 
when Colonel Nelson submitted a preamble and resolutions 
on independence, prepared by Pendleton.^ These were dis- 
cussed in two sittings of the committee, and then reported 
to the House. They were opposed chiefly by delegates from 
the Eastern District, but were advocated by Patrick Henry, 
and passed unanimously when one hundred and twelve 
members were present, — about twenty absenting them- 
selves. This paper enumerated the wrongs done to the 
colonies ; put as the crowning grievance the king's procla- 
mation declaring them out of his protection ; averred that 
there was no alternative but absolute subjection or total 

1 The instructions ixre printed in the "Pennsylvania Evening Post" of May 11 
from the " Virginia Gazette" of April 26. 

2 The Discourse delivered before the " Virginia Alpha and Phi Beta Kappa So- 
ciety" at Williamsburg, July 3, 1855, by Hon. Hugh Blair Grigsby, contains an 
admirable historj' of this convention, with the character of the actors. 

8 Ibid., in a note on p. 204. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 511 

separation, and instructed the delegates appointed to repre- 
sent the colony in the General Congress " to propose to 
that respectable body to declare the United Colonies free 
and independent States," and to " give the assent of the 
colony to measures to form foreign alliances and a confed- 
eration, — provided the power of forming government for 
the internal regulations of each colony be left to the colonial 
legislatures." The same paper also provided for a committee 
to form a plan of government for Virginia. This action 
was transmitted by the President to the other assemblies, 
accompanied by a brief circular.^ On the evening of the 
day the people of Williamsburg rang the bells, fired salutes, 
struck down the British flag from the State House, and raised 
" The Union Flag of the American States." The militia 
welcomed this action with acclamation. It was hailed by 
the patriots in other colonies with enthusiasm, and elicited 
through the press and in private letters glowing tributes to 
the patriotism of the Old Dominion. The convention agreed 
(June 12) upon the famous Declaration of Rights declaring 
all men equally free and independent, all power vested in and 
derived from the people, and that government ought to be 
for the common benefit ; also that all men are equally 
entitled to the free exercise of religion according to the dic- 
tates of conscience. It also complied with the recommenda- 
tion of Congress, by forming a constitution and electing a 

1 Tliis paper was copied into the "Pennsylvania Evening Post" of May 28. 
It is in all the newspapers of this period that I have seen. The following are the 
resolves : — 

Resolved unanimous!;/, That the delegates appointed to represent the colony in the 
General Congress be instructed to propose to tliat respectable body to declare the 
United Colonics free and independent States, absolved from all allegiance to, or 
dependence upon, the crown or parliament of Great Britain; and that they give the 
assent of this colony to such declaration, and to whatever measures may be thought 
proper and necessary by the Congress for forming foreign alliaTices and a confederation 
of tlic colonies, at such time and in the manner as to them shall seem best. Provided, 
that the power of forming government for, and the regulation of the internal concerns 
of, each colony bo left to the respective colonial legislatures. 

Jtesotced unanimously, That a committee be appointed to prepare a declaration of 
rights, and such a plan of government as will be most likely to maintain peace and order 
In this, colony, and secure substantial and equal liberty to the people. 



512 THE EISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

governor and other officers.^ In this great procedure Vir- 
ginia joined with North Carolina in confronting the instruc- 
tions against independence of the Middle Colonies. Its 
action constitutes a brilliant link in the chain that marked 
the nation's birth.^ 

On the fifteenth day of May, only four of the colonies had 
acted definitely on the question of independence. North 
Carolina had authorized her delegates to concur with the dele- 
gates from the other colonies "in declaring independency;" 
Rhode Island had commissioned hers " to join in any meas- 
ure to secure American rights ; " in Massachusetts various 
towns had pledged themselves to maintain any declaration 
on which Congress might agree; and Virginia had given 
the positive instruction to her delegates to propose that Con- 
gress should make a declaration of independence. These 
proceedings were accompanied with declarations respecting 
a reservation to each colony of the right to form its own 
government, in the adjustment of the power universally felt 
to be necessary, and which was to be lodged in a new 
political unit designated by the terms " Confederation," 
" Continental Constitution," and " American Republic." 

The Virginia instructions were carried to Congress by their 
mover in the convention. Colonel Nelson. Three weeks 
elapsed before a motion on independence was submitted in 
this body. The popular party was aglow with the measure. 
It was not then the custom for statesmen to attend public 
meetings out of their respective colonies. The voice of 
Patrick Henry was never heard in Faneuil Hall. John 

1 The Declaration of Rights was reported to the Convention in May and printed for 
the use of the members. It is in the " Pennsj-lvania Evening Post" of June 6, under 
the head "Williamsburg, May 24." The journal of the convention in Force's 
Archives gives May 27 as the date of its presentation. The copies vary. Thus the 
Report has these words: " That all men are born equally free and independent, and 
have certain inherent natural rights." This was changed to "That all men are by 
nature equally i'rce and independent, and have certain inherent rights." The pre- 
amble to the Constitution states that it was adopted " in compliance with the recom- 
mendation of the General Congress." 

2 Rives's Life of Madison, i. 129. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 513 

Adams never addressed a Virginia gathering. The press 
was relied on for intercommunication of sentiment. The 
newspapers were now circulating noble utterances in favor 
of independence. A few sentences from the Boston instruc- 
tions are selected, not because they were the most pointed, 
or were peculiar, but because behind them was the brave 
municipality which so long commanded the admiration of 
patriots everywhere for fidelity to the common cause. " The 
whole United Colonies," was now the language of Boston, 
" are upon the verge of a glorious revolution. We have 
seen the petitions to the king rejected with disdain. For 
the prayer of peace he has tendered the sword ; for liberty, 
chains ; for safety, death. Loyalty to him is now treason 
to our country. We think it absolutely impracticable for 
these colonies to be ever again subject to or dependent upon 
Great Britain, without endangering the very existence of the 
State. Placing, however, unbounded confidence in the su- 
preme councils of the Congress, we are determined to wait, 
most patiently wait, till their wisdom shall dictate the neces- 
sity of making a declaration of independence. In case the 
Congress should think it necessary for the safety of the 
United Colonies to declare them independent of Great 
Britain, the inhabitants, with their lives and the remnant of 
their fortunes, will most cheerfully support them in the 
measure." Tliis admirable paper was printed in Philadel- 
phia, and might have been read by members of Congress 
during the progress of the first debate on independence.^ 

On the 7th of June, Richard Henry Lee, in behalf of 
the Virginia delegates, submitted in Congress resolves on 
independence, a confederation, and foreign alliances. His 
biographer says that " tradition relates that he prefaced his 
motion with a speech," portraying the resources of the colo- 
nies and their capacity for defence, dwelling especially on the 

1 The "Instructions to their Representatives" by the town of Boston werp 
adopted and printed in May, and are in the " Pennsj-^lvania Evening Post" of 
June 8. 

83 



514 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

bearing which an independent position might have on foreign 
powers, and conchided by urging the members so to act that 
the day might give birth to an American Republic.'^ The 
motion was : — 

" That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to 
be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from 
all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political 
connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, 
and ought to be totally dissolved. 

" That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual 
measures for forming foreign alliances. 

" That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmit- 
ted to the respective colonies for their consideration and 
approbation." 

John Adams seconded the motion. The Journal of Con- 
gress says, "that, certain resolutions respecting independ- 
ency being moved and seconded," they were postponed till 
to-morrow morning, and " that the members were enjoined 
to attend punctually at ten o'clock in order to take the same 
into their consideration." Jefferson says that the reason of 
the postponement was that the House were obliged to attend 
to other business. This record indicates that no speech 
was made on that day.^ 

The next day was Saturday. John Hancock, the Presi- 
dent, was in the chair ; and Charles Thomson was the Secre- 
tary. The resolves were immediately referred to a commit- 
tee of the whole, in which Benjamin Harrison presided, — the 

1 Lee, in "Life of Richard Henry Lee," sa3's (vol. i. 169), that as soon as the 
instructions arrived, the delegates appointed Lee to move a resolution conformably 
to them. ISIadison (Writings, iii. 282) sajs, that the duty, in consequerce of the 
death of Peyton Randolph, devolved on Lee, as the next in order on the list of dele- 
gates. On the 27th of May "the delegates of North Carolina and the delegates from 
Virginia laid before Congress certain instructions which they received from their 
respective conventions." (Journals of Congress, ii. 183.) Elbridge Gerry, on the 
28th of May, sent these instructions to James Warren, saying: "Their conventions 
have unanimously declared for independencj', and have in this respect exceeded 
their sister colonies in a most noble and decisive measure." — Life of Gerry, i. 181. 

2 Memoir, &c., ed. IfiSO, p. 10. Bancroft (viii. 289) does not name any speech 
delivered on the 7th. 



BIRTH OP THE NATION. olS 

confidential correspondent of Washington, and subsequently 
governor of Virginia. They were debated with animation 
until seven o'clock in the evening, when the President 
resumed the chair, and reported that the committee had 
considered the matter referred to them, but, not having 
come to any decision, directed him to move for leave to sit 
again on Monday. 

In Congress, on Monday, Edward Rutledge moved that 
the question be postponed for three weeks. The debate on 
this day continued until seven o'clock in the evening. Not 
a single speech of any member is known to be extant. Jef- 
ferson, at the time, summed up the argument used by the 
speakers during both days. It was said by James Wilson, 
Robert R. Livingston, Edward Rutledge, John Dickinson, 
and others, that, though they were friends to the measures 
themselves, and saw the impossibility that they should ever 
be united with Grreat Britain, yet they were against adopting 
the motion at that time. Their main reason was the lack 
of unanimity. It was said that the people of the Middle 
Colonics were not ripe for bidding adieu to British connec- 
tion, as was shown by the ferment into which the Resolution 
of the Fifteenth of May had thrown them, but that they 
were fast ripening, and in a short time would join the 
general voice of America; that with such want of unanimity 
there was little reason to expect an alliance with the powers 
named ; that France and Spain had reason to be jealous of 
that rising power which would certainly strip them of all 
their American possessions, and would be more likely to 
form a connection with the British court, which, to recover 
tlie colonies, would agree to restore the Canadas to France 
and Florida to Spain. On the other side, it was urged by 
John Adams, Richard Henry Lee, George Wythe, and 
others, that no one had argued against the policy or the 
right of separation from Britain, or had supposed it possible 
that they should ever renew their connection, but that the 
only opposition was to an immediate declaration ; that tlio 



516 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

question was not whether by a declaration of independence 
they should make tliemselres what they were not, but 
whether they should declare a fact. which already existed; 
that the people were waiting for Congress to lead the way ; 
that they were in favor of the measure, though the instruc- 
tions given to some of the representatives were not ; that 
the effect of the Resolution of the Fifteenth of May proved 
this, — for the murmurs against it, in the Middle Colonies, 
called forth the voice of the freer part of the people, and 
proved them to be a majority in favor of it ; that it would be 
vain to wait either weeks or months for perfect unanimity, 
since it was impossible that all men should ever become of 
one sentiment on any question. It was said that a declara- 
tion of independence alone could render it consistent with 
European delicacy for European powers to treat with them 
or receive an ambassador from them.^ Besides the general 
summary of Jefferson, are a few individual notices. Wilson 
avowed that the removal of the restriction on his vote did 
not change his view of his obligation to resist independence, 
while John Adams defended the proposed measures as 
" objects of the most stupendous magnitude, in which the 
lives and liberties of millions yet unborn were intimately 
interested." 2 The result may be given in the words of 
Jefferson : "It appearing in the course of these debates that 
the colonies of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Dela- 
ware, Maryland, and South Carolina, were not yet matured 
for falling from the parent stem, but that they were fast 
advancing to that state, it was thought most prudent to wait 
awhile for them." It was agreed in committee of the whole 
to report to Congress a resolution which was adopted by a 
vote of seven colonies to five. This postponed the resolu- 
tion on independence to the first day of July ; and " in the 

1 The summary of Jefferson occupies four pages of the Memoir printed in 1830, 
in the " Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies from the Papers of Thomas 
Jefferson." It is said in the preface, "This is the first disclosure to the world of 
those debates." 

2 The citations are from Bancrotl, viii. 391. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. Ol7 

mean while, that no time be lost, a committee he appointed 
to prepare a declaration in conformity to it." On the next 
day a committee was chosen for this purpose by ballot : 
Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachu- 
setts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman 
of Connecticut, and Robert R. Livingston of New York. 
On the 12th, a committee of one from each colony was 
chosen to report the form of a confederation, and a com- 
mittee of five to prepare a plan of treaties to be proposed 
to foreign powers. 

When Congress postponed the vote on independence, the 
popular movement in its favor was in full activity. Some 
of the members left this body to engage in it. Others pro- 
moted it by their counsel. One of them, John Adams, on 
the Sunday intervening between the two days of the great 
debate, wrote : " Objects of the most stupendous magnitude, 
and measures in which the lives and fortunes of millions yet 
unborn are intimately connected, are now before us. We 
are in the midst of a revolution the most complete, unex- 
pected, and remarkable of any in the history of nations." ^ 
Perils were multiplying on every side. The Indians were 
scalping along the. border settlements. Carleton was driv- 
ing the continental army out of Canada. The Howes, with 
a powerful land and naval force, were threatening New 
England, and moving on New York. Parker's fleet was 
approaching Charleston. The loyalists were arming and 
rising in Delaware, New Jersey, and New Yoi;lv. " Armies," 
it was said, " composed of Hessians, Hanoverians, Regulars, 
Tories, and Indians, were plundering and murdering, while 
the king was amusing a distressed people with the sound of 
commissioners crying peace when there was no peace." ^ 
" Anxiety," says Tucker, " and apprehension invaded every 
breast. Every public assembly, every religious congregation, 
every scene of social intercourse, or of domestic privacy and 

1 Letter, June 9, 1776. Life and Works of John Adams, ix. 391. 

2 Article in "Connecticut Courant," June 17, 1776. 



618 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

retirement, was a scene of deliberation on the public calam- 
ity and impending danger." ^ The colonies were without a 
government, or military supplies, or money. They were 
strong in courage and indomitable will. " America," says 
Walter Savage Landor, " was never so great as on the day 
when she declared her independence. In fact no nation is 
ever greater than at the time it recovers its freedom from 
under one apparently more powerful." '^ 

The combination of an internal enemy with foreign in- 
vaders has goaded nations to madness ; but, in America if 
it added intensity to the party strifes, it seems to have also 
increased the caution of the popular leaders. The Resolu- 
tion of the Fifteenth of May connected the question of local 
government with that of independence. In the Middle Col- 
onies, the popular party, with these issues on their banners, 
were met by a powerful combination of Tories and friends 
of the proprietary interests, opposed to change and revolu- 
tion. Thus a providential current was checked and chafed 
by dams, and there was the noise of many waters. It 
would be idle to say that the Whigs were always in the 
right, and the Tories always wrong. There began at this 
period, in localities where the war became one of extermi- 
nation, excesses that were shocking to the common human- 
ity. Congress had enjoined upon the people " to take care 
that no page in the annals of America be stained by the 
recital of any action which justice or Christianity might 
condemn ; " uqw in a resolve it strove to keep their cause 
in the line of order ;^ and during the month of June, tlie 
wild power of passion spent itself mostly in hot words and 
goading crimination. The political appeals continued to be 

1 Tucker's Blackstone, i. part 1, 84. 

2 The Works of Walter Savage. Landor, London edition, 1868, i. 126. 

3 The vote of Congress in June, in relation to the treatment of the Tories, shows 
the desire to keep the cause free from excesses. It is in the " Philadelphia Evening 
Post" of June 18. ^^Besolvod, That no man in these colonies charged with being a 
Tory, or unfriendly to the cause of American liberty, be injured in his person or 
property, unless the proceeding against him be founded on an order of this Con- 
gress," or committee, &c. 



BIRTH OP THE NATION. 519 

high toned, and to embody the reverent spirit and the true 
heroism of patriots.^ " May America," writes one, " rise 
triiuni)liant, blossom as the rose, and swell with increasing 
splendor, like the growing beauties of the spring, bearing 
in her right hand the great charter of Salvation, the Gospel 
of the Heavenly Jesus, and in the left the unfolding vol- 
umes of Peace, Liberty, and Truth." ^ 

Pennsylvania was fairly alive with the idea of independ- 
ence. Nowhere had the question been more thoroughly 
discussed than in its press ; and nowhere was the opposition 
to it more strongly intrenched, for it had on its side the 
proprietary government. Tories could point to the instruc- 
tions of the Assembly against it as tlie voice of an eighth 
of the inhabitants of America. Then, too, warm advocates 
of independence — Charles Thomson, for instance — desired 
to retain the charter ; agreeing in this with the Tories, 
the majority of the Quakers, and the proprietary party. 
Hence it is not easy to describe the political feeling with 
precision.^ Personal preferences and political rivalries, how- 
ever, gave way before the power of ideas. It was the policy 
of the Whigs to avoid national distinctions and provincial 
narrowness, and to become united " under the sole denomi- 
nation of Americans ;" * and it was not possible for them to 

1 The following stanza is in the "New Hampshire Gazette" of June 8, and the 
" Connecticut Gazette ' ' of June 28, and in other newspapers : — 

" From North though stormy winds may blow 

To blast fair Freedom, fragrant flower, 
And urge the seas to overflow 

The banks, that shield it from their power: 
Yet, planted here by God's own hand, 

Be not, dear fugitive, dismayed. 
The winds shall cease at His command. 

The sea's proud waves shall soon be stayed." 

2 Force's American Archives, 4th Series, v. 1171. Under the date of May, 
1776; under the signature of "Cosmopolitan." 

8 Reed's Life of Reed, i. 151. On p. 152 may be found a letter of Thomson on 
the subject of the Charter. 

* The Twenty-first Rule of the Military Association was: "All national distinc- 
tions in dress or name to be avoided, it being proper that we should be united in 
this general association to defend our liberties and properties, under the sole denom- 
ination of Americans." — Pennsylvania Evening Post, April 25, 1776. 



520 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

rest satisfied witli a government wliicli excluded so large 
a share of population as tlie Germans, from the ballot. 
There was also the great fact of Union. Under its influence, 
the old proprietary party and the popular party buried their 
former animosities, and united against a common oppres- 
sion,^ when, in line upon line, Pennsylvania pledged herself 
to abide by the decisions of Congress, — a proceeding in 
which politicians of the type of the Tory Galloway joined.^ 
On this well-prepared soil fell the Resolution of the Fif- 
teenth of May. The principle it embodied was accepted by 
the popular party as their rule of action, as they had accepted 
the Continental Association ; and they determined that it 
should be respected as law throughout the province. They 
said that their governor was commissioned by, and the char- 
tered power of the assembly was derived from, ^heir mortal 
enemy the king ; and that a body of men bound by oaths 
of allegiance was " disqualified to take into consideration" 
this Resolution. Fidelity to the cause required the abroga- 
tion of all royal authority, and the organization of a govern- 
ment on the authority of the people. The public conviction 
was embodied in a great public meeting held on the 20th of 
May at the State House. It was called to order by Major 
John Bayard, a man of singular purity of character, brave 
and devout, in which Colonel Daniel Roberdeau, a gallant 
soldier of the Revolution, presided, and Thomas McKean, 
an eminent civilian, took a part. The Resolution of Con- 
gress was read, when " the people in testimony of their 
warmest approbation gave three cheers." The instructions 
of the Assembly against independence, of November 9th, 
were read, when the meeting unanimously resolved that 
they had the " dangerous tendency to withdraw this prov- 
ince from that happy union with the other colonies which 
we consider both our glory and protection." In a protest 

1 Gordon's History of Pennsylvania, 525. 

2 See page 338 for the pledge to abide by the decisioa of Congress, and page 396 
for approval of its proceedings. 



BIRTH OP THE NATION. 521 

to the Assembly denying its authority, and acknowledging 
that of the Resolution of Congress, it is said : " We are 
fully convinced that our safety and happiness, next to the 
immediate providence of God, depends upon our complying 
with and supporting the said resolve of Congress, that 
thereby the union of the colonies may be preserved in- 
violate." ^ 

This meeting applied the far-reaching principle, that in 
matters relating to the welfare of a common country, the 
union is paramount. An appeal to the public, signed "■ One 
of the Seven Thousand who appeared at the State House 
and swore to support the Union," says : " You will be 
called on to declare whether you will support the union of 
the colonies in opposition to the instructions of the House 
of Assembly, or whether you will support the Assembly 
against the union of the colonies. We have declared for 
the former ; and we will, at the hazard of our lives, support 
the Union." ^ This great demonstration was felt throughout 
the province. The position it took was responded to by 
local committees, public meetings, and military battalions. 
The Resolution of the Fifteenth of May was everywhere 
greeted with enthusiasm. A remonstrance against it, 
issued by the friends of the old charter, was burnt as a 
seditious and treasonable libel. ^ But I have space only to 
give results. The Assembly so far yielded to the outburst 
of popular feeling as, on the 8th of June, to adopt instruc- 
tions authorizing the delegates to concur in forming further 

1 The proceedings of this meeting are in the '• Pennsylvania Evening Post " of 
May 21. 

2 Ibid. In Marshall's " Eemembraucer " (p. 82) it is stated that the great meet- 
ing met in the State-House j-ard, in the rain, at ten o'clock, and continued until 
twelve, and that after the adjournment the committee of Philadelphia appointed 
oersons to carry the resolves to the counties. 

3 '' We hear that the remonstrance to the Assembly of this Province against the 
resolve of the Honorable Congress of the 15th inst. (now signing by a few people in 
this city) was burnt in the most ignominious manner, at Reading, in Berks County, 
«s a seditious and treasonable libel tending to destroy the union of the colonies and 
to ruin this province " — Pennsylvania Evening Post, May 30. This remonstrance 
■vas printed in the issue of this paper of the 23d of May. 



522 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

compacts between the United Colonies, and in promoting 
the safety and interests of America, reserving to the people 
the sole right of regulating their internal government. The 
committee of Philadelphia had (May 21) issued a circular 
addressed to the committees of the several counties, say- 
ing : " If you wish this province to be restored to their rank 
in the Continental Union, we recommend you to send a 
delegation to meet the deputies of the other committees, 
to agree upon the mode of electing members to a Provincial 
Convention, "• for the express purpose of establishing a new 
government on the authority of the people only, according 
to the enclosed recommendation of the Honorable Conti- 
nental Congress." •■■ 

This call was enthusiastically responded to. On the 
18th of June the conference assembled in Carpenters' Hall. 
Thomas McKean was the President. On the 24th, this 
body issued a call for a convention to form a government ; 
and the paper inaugurating the American practice in insti- 
tuting organic law is so calm, just, and simple, as to denote 
a period of repose rather than the turmoil out of which 
it sprung.^ The conference, on the motion of Benjamin' 
Rush, adopted (June 24) a declaration expressing their 
determination to concur in a vote of Congress declaring the 
United Colonies free and independent States, provided that 
the power of forming the government and the regulation 
of the internal concerns of each colony be always reserved 
to the people. This patriotic conference, on giving the fin- 
ishing stroke to the revolutionary action of Pennsylvania, 
declared that their procedure did not originate in ambition 
or in impatience of lawful authority, but that they were 
driven to it by the first principles of nature, by the oppres- 
sions and cruelties of the king and parliament, and had 
adopted it as the only means that were left to them of pre- 

1 This letter, dated May 21, is in the " Phihidelphia Evening Post " of June 13. 

2 This paper was printed in "Pennsylvania Evening Post" of June 25. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 623 

serving and establishing their liberties, and transmitting 
them inviolate to their posterity. 

In the three lower counties of New Castle, Kent, and Sus- 
sex, or Delaware, independence met with strong opposition. 
These counties were intimately connected with Pennsylvania, 
and shared largely its political feelings and agitations. 
Thomas McKean, who took so prominent a part in the 
movements in Pennsylvania, was equally prominent in Dela- 
ware. On the 22d of March the Assembly instructed its 
delegates to join in the military operations required for the 
common defence, to cultivate the Union with the greatest 
care, and to " avoid and discourage any separate treaty " ; 
but to aim at reconciliation. This restricted the action of 
McKean and Caesar Rodney, stanch advocates of independ- 
ence. The third delegate, George Read, sympathized with 
Robert Morris and Dickinson, in viewing a change of gov- 
ernment and independence premature. The Resolution of 
the Fifteenth of May brought on a crisis. The popular 
party in Kent County instructed their delegates to demand 
of the Assembly compliance with the Resolution, and, in 
case of a refusal to call a convention, to withdraw, and thus 
dissolve the House. The anti-revolutionary party presented 
a remonstrance against this course, and against changing 
the constitution at that crisis. The popular party won a 
partial victory. The Assembly, on the 14th of June, 
authorized their delegates to concur with the other dele- 
gates " in forming such further compacts between the 
United Colonies,'' and " adopting such other measures as 
shall be judged necessary " to promote the liberty of 
America, " reserving to the people of this colony the sole 
and exclusive right of regulating the internal government 
and police of the same." ^ On the next day, it declared 
that all persons holding office should continue to exercise 
power " in the name of the government of the Counties 

1 Life and Correspondence of George Read, 165, where may be found the other 
papers cited in the text. 



524 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

of New Castle, Kent, and Sussex upon Delaware, as they 
used to exercise them in the name of the king, until a new 
government should be formed agreeably to the resolution of \ 
Congress." Thus the popular party removed the restriction 
respecting independence, and prepared the way for a new 
government.^ 

In New Jersey the struggle for independence was exciting 
and interesting. The opposing parties, both in their ele- 
ments and in their relation to the cause, were much like 
those of Pennsylvania.^ The Governor, William Franklin, 
continued to the last a zealous and dogged loyalist ; and 
behind him was a strong party for reconciliation. Besides 
the instructions against independence, the Assembly resolved 
on a separate petition to the king ; when Congress sent to 
this body the illustrious trio, John Dickinson, John Jay, and 
George Wythe, to procure a reversal of their determination. 
They were courteously received on the floor, and urged in 
addresses that nothing but unity and bravery in the Colo- 
nies would bring Great Britain to terms ; that she wanted 
to procure separate petitions ; but that such a course would 
break the Union, when the colonies would be like a rope 
of sand.^ The Assembly yielded. It was soon 'prorogued, 
and did not reassemble. The political power was vested in 
a Provincial Congress; representing a constituency who 
had, in their municipalities, their party organizations, and 
their Assembly, agreed to abide by the decisions of Con- 
gress; and had approved of the Association.* The vigorous 
measures for the common defence met with a generous re- 
sponse. The royal governor, seeing the torrent of public 
opinion sweeping away the powers and services pertaining 
to his office, determined to restore the old authority; and ho 

1 Force's Archives, 4th Series, vi. 884. 

2 (jordon in the History of New Jersey (1834) uses (pp. 178-180) to describe the 
parties tlie language in which he (1829) had described (pp. 524-526) part es in Penn- 
sylvania. 

3 Bancroft, vii. 214. 

4 In pages 340 and 396 will be found the pledges of New Jersey. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 525 

issued (May 30) a proclamation summoning the Assonbly. 
Soon afterward a new Provincial Congress — the delegates 
to which were chosen pursuant to its own ordinance — met 
on the 10th of June, at Burlington. Jonathan Dickinson 
Sergeant, John Witherspoon, Frederick Frelinghuysen, — 
distinguished in the history of the country, — were among 
the members. They voted that the proclamation of Frank- 
lin " ought not to be obeyed;" that "by such proclamation 
he had acted in direct contempt and violation of the Resolve 
of Congress of the 15th of May " ; and that (June 16) 
measures be taken to secure his person, as that of an 
enemy to the liberties of the country. The Governor was 
confined to his own house, and his case referred to the Gen- 
eral Congress, which ordered him to be sent a prisoner to 
Connecticut. The Provincial Congress voted (June 21) 
to form a government " for regulating the internal police of 
the colony, pursuant to the recommendation " of Congress. 
On the next day a new set of delegates were chosen, who 
were empowered to join with the delegates of the other colo- 
nies in " declaring the United Colonies independent of Great 
Britain," and entering into a confederacy, " always observ- 
ing that, whatever plan of confederacy they entered into, 
the regulating the internal police of this province was to be 
reserved to the colony legislature." ^ 

In Maryland the party in favor of independence encoun- 
tered peculiar obstacles. Under the proprietary rule the 
colony enjoyed a large measure of happiness and prosperity. 
The Governor, Robert Eden, was greatly respected, and to 
the last was treated with forbearance. " You need," he 
wrote to his brother, April 28th, " be under no concern about 
me. I am well supported and not obnoxious to any, unless 
it be to some of our infernal independents who are in league 
with the Bostonians."2 The political power was vested in 

1 Journal of the Provincial Congress in Force's Archives, 4th Series, vi. 1615. 
The votes relative to Governor Franklin are in the "Pennsylvania Evening Post" 
of June 18, attested by the President and Secretary of Congress. 

* MSS. in Jared Sparks's Collection. 



526 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

a Convention which created the Council of Safety and pro- 
vided for the common defence. This was, however, so 
much under the control of the proprietary party and timid 
Whigs that, on the 21st of May, it renewed its former 
instructions against independence ; and after considering 
the Resolution of Congress of the Fifteenth of May, and 
providing for a suspension of the oaths of allegiance, it 
declared that it was not necessary to suppress every kind of 
authority under the crown, or to establish government on the 
power of the people.^ This action created the issue which 
stirred the neighboring colonies so profoundly, whether this 
decision or the recommendation of the United Colonies 
should stand. The popular leaders determined " to take 
the sense of the people." Charles Carroll of Carrolton, and 
Samuel Chase, who had just returned from Canada, entered 
with zeal into the movement on the side of independence 
and revolution. Meetings were called in tlie counties, and 
the political sentiment embodied in their proceedings har- 
monized with that of the counties in Virginia and Pennsyl- 
vania, and of the towns in Massachusetts, in principle and 
object. Anne Arundel County declared that the province, 
except in questions of domestic policy, was bound by the 
decisions of Congress, that the instructions of this colony 
against independence ought to be rescinded, and that their 
own action proceeded " from a thorough conviction that 
the true interests and substantial happiness of the United 
Colonies in general, and this in particular, are inseparably 
interwoven and linked together, and essentially dependent 
on a close union and continental confederation." This 
sentiment was embodied in instructions, under ten lieads, — 
as clear, strong, and sound as any paper of the times, — 
addressed to Charles Carroll, Barrister, Samuel Chase, 

1 The resolves occMpy a column of the "Pennsylvania Evening Post" of May 
25. In the same issue is a memorial to the Congress of the Committee of the City 
and Liberties of Pliiladelpliia, dated May 24, saying " that they have beheld with 
great affliction the Assembly of Pennsylvania withlraw from its union with the Con- 
gress," by its action on the Resolve of May 15th. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 627 

Thomas Johnson, William Paca, and Charles Carroll of 
Carrolton. Charles County followed, pronouncing for inde- 
pendence, confederation, and a new government. Talbot 
County, addressing, among others, Matthew Tilghman, " saw 
with grief and astonishment the Convention of Maryland, in 
matters of the utmost importance, resolving in direct oppo- 
sition to the honorable Congress," and regarded their action 
on the Resolution of the Fifteenth of May as " a direct 
breach of the Continental Union." Frederick County (June 
17) unanimously resolved : " That what may be recommended 
by a majority of the Congress equally delegated by the 
people of the United Colonies, we will, at the hazard of our 
lives and fortunes, support and maintain ; and that every 
resolution of the Convention tending to separate this prov- 
ince from a majority of the colonies, without the consent of 
the people, is destructive to our internal safety, and big with 
public ruin." ^ This was immediately printed, " Read the 
papers," Samuel Chase wrote on the 21st to John Adams, 
" and be assured Frederick speaks the sense of many coun- 
ties." - Two days afterward the British man-of-war, Fowey, 
with a flag of truce at her top-gallant mast, anchored before 
Annapolis ; the next day Governor Eden was on board ; and 
so closed the series of royal governors on Maryland soil. 
A convention assembled at Annapolis, on the 21st of June, 
in which were Chase, Carroll of Carrolton, Johnson, and 
Tilghman ; and on the 28th it recalled the former instruc- 
tions against independence, and authorized the delegates " to 
concur with the delegates of the other colonies in declaring 
the United Colonies free and independent States," and in 
forming a compact or confederation, " provided the sole and 
exclusive right of regulating the internal government and 
police of this colony be reserved to the people thereof."^ 

1 I copy the Resolve of Frederick County as printed fi-om the "Pennsylvania 
Journal" of June 26, 1770. The proceedings of the several counties are in Force's 
Archives, 4th Series, Volume vi. 

2 Life and Works of John Adams, ix. 412, 
8 Force's Archives, 4th Series, vi. 1491. 



528 THE RISE OF THE REPTTBLIC. 

The result was hailed with the liveliest satisfaction by the 
popular leaders in Congress. 

In Georgia there was strong opposition to independence. 
The Provincial Congress chose a new set of delegates, and 
on the 5tli of April authorized them to join in all measures 
which they might think calculated for the common good, — 
charging them " always to keep in view the general utility, 
rcmeml3ering that the great and righteous cause in which 
they were engaged was not provincial, but continental." ^ It 
was circulated in the newspapers that the delegation were 
authorized to go to the full length of a separation from Great 
Britain. 

In South Carolina independence was opposed by a large 
portion of the people. The new gorernment, however, on 
the 23d of March, gave full authority to their delegates to 
agree to any measure judged necessary for the welfare of 
the colony or of America. On the 1st of April the legis- 
lature, in an address to the President, said, that their new 
constitution looked forward to an accommodation with Great 
Britain, an event, " which, though traduced and treated as 
rebels, we earnestly desire " ; yet on the 6th they declared 
that the colony "would not enter into any treaty or corre- 
spondence with that power, or with any persons under that 
authority, but through the medium of the Continental Con- 
gress." ^ 

In New York there was great hesitancy in acting on the 
question of independence. The external danger was immi- 
nent ; the internal strife, bitter. A party, which had in its 
ranks John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, Robert R. Livingston, 
and George Clinton, was certainly a power ; but it had hard 
odds to contend against, and down to the date of the dec- 
laration it had failed to bring over a majority to decisive 
measures. The course of things here gave the popular 

1 "Pennsylvania Evening Post," May 28, 1776. 

2 These important resolves were directed to be forthwith printed and made pub- 
lic. They are in the "Pennsylvania Evening Post" of May 23. Also the address 
to Governor Rutledge and his reply. These papers occupy one side the paper. 



BIRTH OP THE NATION. 529 

leaders in Congress great vexation. In vain did the New- 
York delegates write letters soliciting instructions on the 
subject of independence. The Resolution of the Fifteenth 
of May elicited in the Provincial Congress — in which the 
political power resided — an elaborate report and, on the 
31st of May, a measure designed to ascertain the sense of 
the electors on the propriety of instituting such government 
as Congress recommended. The final instruction to the 
delegates on independence was chilling. In reply to their 
pressing letter of the 8th of June, the Provincial Congress, 
on the 11th, advised them, that they were not authorized to 
vote for independence, that Congress declined to instruct 
them on that point, and that as measures had been taken to 
obtain the authority of the people to establish regular gov- 
ernment, " it would be imprudent to require the sentiments 
of the people relative to the question of independence, lest it 
should create division and have an unhappy influence on the 
other." However able and brilliant New York might have 
been in laying down the principles of the Revolution, it was 
the least unanimous in embodying them in the great meas- 
ures of independence.^ 

In New England the issues that stirred up the Middle 
Colonies were already virtually settled. The Governments 
were in the hands of a people who were longing for a 
declaration of independence. Only in Massachusetts, how- 
ever, were the towns called upon to express their views ; 
and the returns showed that a people could not be more 
united than this people were on the expediency of a declara- 
tion of independence. In Connecticut the king's name was 
disused in issuing writs and civil processes ; the governor 
returned a cordial reply to the circular of Virginia on inde- 

1 Force's Archives, 4th Series, vi. 814. This volume, p 1299, has the proceed- 
ings of the Provincial Congress. On the 11th of June it adopted a series of resolves 
in relation to local government, and requesting the freeholders to express their opin- 
ions "respecting the great question of independency," but agreed to postpone their 
publication until after the election of deputies, wLth powers to form a new governr 
ment. 

34 



630 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

pendence, expressing " the most sensible satisfaction to see 
the ancient and patriotic Colony of Virginia had nobly 
advanced " to the point of instructing their delegates to 
propose independence ; and the legislature, on the 14th of 
June, instructed their delegates to propose in Congress, " to 
declare the United American Colonies free and independent 
States," and to promote a permanent plan of union and 
confederation, — "saving that the power for the regulation 
of the internal concerns and police of each colony " be left 
to the colonial legislature. The New-Hampshire legislature, 
on the 15th of June, instructed their delegates " to join in 
declaring the Thirteen Colonies an independent State, . . . 
provided the regulation of their internal police be under the 
direction of their own assembly." 

In the last days of June the agitation on the question 
of independence ceased in every colony except New York. 
Ten colonies — North Carolina, Rhode Island, Massachu- 
setts, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Mary- 
land, Connecticut, and New Hampshire — expressed their 
will indirect action upon it; while Georgia and South Caro- 
lina gave comniissiqns to their delegates which covered the 
power to vote for it. Thus twelve of the United Colonies 
authorized their representatives to join in making a declara- 
tion of independence ; and hence designated Congress to 
perform this high act of sovereignty. Indeed no other 
course was suggested. "Such a declaration," Judge Dray- 
ton said from the bench, " was of right to be made only by 
the general Congress, because the united voice and strength 
of America were necessary to give a desirable credit and 
prospect of stability to a declared state of total separation 
from Great Britain." ^ The unanimity was thought remark- 
able. The secret and providential influence which disposed 



1 Charge in a court in Charleston, Oct. 15, 1776, " On the rise of the American 
Empire." lie sa3's: "A decree is now gone forth not to be recalled! and thus lias 
suddenly risen in the world a new empire, styled The United States of America." — 
American Remembrancer, v. 327. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 531 

tlie licarts and minds of the people to form a union/ and 
to give the union the force of law, disposed them to go 
forward together and assume rank as a nation. 

All through this popular movement, the union is seen act- 
ing in obedience to the primal law of self preservation, — 
clinging to life, and frowning on whatever tended to destroy 
life. Yet in all the enthusiasm roused by unfurling a 
national flag, and the prospect of attaining independence, 
there is manifested no desire for such consolidation as 
would weaken the old self-government. The intelligent 
grasp by the public mind of fundamentals in a republic is 
seen in the sagacious reservation by each colony of the 
right to regulate the internal police or to frame the local 
law. In this way the people, as they entered into the 
solemn covenant which recognized a common country, 
marked the outlines of the two spheres of political power — 
the two orders of trusts — which they intended to establish 
in a new American system, — local governments for the 
States, and a general government for the Union. Neither 
language nor acts could have been desired to show more 
conclusively that both political units — the State and the 
Nation — were designed to be paramount, each in its allotted 
sphere. 

The publicity attending every important movement rela- 
tive to independence enabled the members of Congress to 
judge for themselves of the state of public opinion on the 
question. They could sec a type of the sentiment of New 
England in the noble instructions of Boston, which declared 
that loyalty to the king had become treason to the country. 
They could know the spirit that triumphed in the Middle 
Colonics, from the admirable Declaration of the Pennsylvania 
Conference, which averred that the public virtue would be 
endangered by a longer connection with Great Britain. 
They had the determination of the Southern Colonies, as 
embodied in the strong papers of North Carolina and Vir- 

1 ,See the citation from Ramsay on p. 398. 



532 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

ginia.^ On the 29tli of June they might liave read a fresh 
and most spirited expression of the public feeling in an 
article in a Philadelphia newspaper, denouncing in severe 
terms those who thought of reconciliation ; and, with the 
remark that Americans could not offer terms of peace with 
Great Britain until they had agreed upon a name, suggest- 
ing that the contemplated power be called The United 
States of America.^ 

The popular verdict had settled the question in favor of a 
declaration of independence ; and as the expectation was 
general, if not universal, that it should be made at once, to 
postpone it was to hazard internal convulsion. The form 
only remained to be determined upon. The committee 
appointed to report a draft requested their chairman, Jeffer- 
son, to prepare one, which he did. He submitted his manu- 
script to Franklin and Adams separately, members whose 
critical judgment he valued the most ; and each made a few 
verbal alterations, still to be seen in their handwriting. 
Then the paper was read in a meeting of the committee, 
and, without further alterations, was accepted. It was re- 
ported in Congress on the 28th of June, and ordered to lie 
on the table. On the same day Francis Hopkinson of New 
Jersey, one of the five new members from that colony, " all 
independent souls," presented instructions in favor of a 
declaration. 

Congress, as assembled on the first day of July in 
Independence Hall, contained probably fifty-one delegates.^ 
Some met for the first time. The names of the new mem- 
bers, and of others who signed the declaration but who were 
not yet elected, are found connected with the past revolu- 

1 The papers referred to in the text were printed in the Philadelphia newspapers. 

2 "Republicus," in the " Pennsylvania Evening Post," June '29. He says: " Tlie 
condition of those brave fellows who have fallen into the enemies' hands makes a 
declaration of independence absolutely necessar}', because no proper cartel for an 
exchanj^e of prisoners can take place while we remain dependents. It is some 
degree of comfort to a man taken prisoner, that he belongs to some national power, — 
is the subject of some State that will see after him." 

8 Bancroft, viii. 4-59. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 533 

tioiiary action of their several colonies. Among the dele- 
gates were the enterprising merchant, the learned lawyer, 
the eminent divine, the profound jurist, and the ripe scholar. 
It was a body remarkably rich in individuality of character, 
containing illustrious men: "not such as they are lauded by 
clioson encomiasts, but as they are proved to have been " 
by their character, designs, and works. Thus their political 
ideas had an anchorage in morals, law, order, and religion ; 
and they acted upon principle to a degree unparalleled in the 
examples of collective public virtue.^ John Hancock and 
Sanmel Adams were under sentence of proscription from the 
king. Franklin, " the genius of the day and the patron of 
American liberty," ^ had fame as wide as civilization. Many 
were destined to serve their countrymen in a new political 
system, as representatives, senators, judges, governors, and 
cabinet officers ; others, to enlarge the bounds of knowledge 
by contributions to literature and science ; and the greater 
number, to live to a great age, and to see the fruits of their 
labors ripen. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, to the 
honor of that generation, rose to be presidents. They were 
permitted to linger among a new generation, beloved and 
venerated ; and after passing an old age of singular beauty and 
glory, to enter into their rest, on the fiftieth anniversary of the 
event which, by their large service in hastening it, is indeli- 
bly associated with their memories. On this morning of an 
eventful day Adams expressed the foregone conchision as he 
wrote of the work laid out : " Heaven prosper the new-born 
republic, and make it more glorious than any former repub- 
lics ; " ^ while Jefferson had the sanction of his colleague to 
the great instrument which embodied the principles on which 
the republic was to be based. 

The preliminary business having been disposed of, the 
resolution of the Maryland Convention on independence was 

1 American (Juarterly Review, i 437. 

2 This term was applied to him in the newspapers in June, 1776. 

3 John Adams to Archibald Bullock, Julj' 1. Works, ix. 414. 



/)34 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC, 

read ; and this trophy of a hard political fight diffused gen- 
eral joy. The order of the day was read, when Congress 
voted to " resolve itself into a committee of the whole to take 
into consideration the resolution respecting independency," 
and to refer " the draft of the declaration to this committee." 
Benjamin Harrison was called to the chair. The new dele- 
gates from New Jersey now desired to hear the question 
discussed, and Richard Stockton was so importunate that 
several remarked, "Let the gentlemen be gratified." "All 
was silence," John Adams writes. " No one would speak. 
All eyes were turned upon me. Mr. Edward Rutledge came 
to me and said, laughing, ' Nobody will speak but you upon 
this subject. You have all the topics so ready that you 
must satisfy the gentlemen from New Jersey.' " Others 
also said to him, " You must recapitulate the arguments." 
Adams, somewhat confused at this personal appeal, rose and 
began : "■ This is the first time of my life when I seriously 
wished for the genius and eloquence of the celebrated orators 
of Athens and Rome, called in this unexpected and unpre- 
pared manner to exhibit all the arguments in favor of a 
measure the most important in my judgment that had ever 
been discussed in civil or political society. I had no art or 
oratory to exhibit, and could produce nothing but simple 
reason and plain common sense. I felt myself oppressed by 
the weight of the subject ; and I believe if Demosthenes or 
Cicero had ever been called to deliberate on so great a ques- 
tion, neither would have relied on his own talents without a 
supplication to Minerva, and a sacrifice to Mercury or the 
god of eloquence." ^ No further report of this unpromedi- 

1 "All this," he sa}'s, "to be sure, was but a flourish, and not, as I conceive, 
a very bright exordium." — John Adams to IMrs. Mercy Warren, dated " Quincy, 
1807." lam indebtedto Hon. Charles H.Warren foracopy of this letter, which may 
be found in the appendix. Daniel Webster (Curtis's Life, ii. 295) in a letter dated 
Jau. 27, 18iC, says: " So far as I know there is not existing in print or manuscript 
the speech, or any part or fragment of a speech, delivered by Mr. Adams on the 
Declaration of Independence." The biographer of Adams (Works, i. 228) says of 
this speech, " Not a word has been transmitted to posterity." Adams in his Auto- 
biography (Works, iii. 58) gives some of the incidents attending this speech, but not 
the exordium. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. £)35 

tated speech is known to be in existence. According to one 
statement he set forth the justice, the necessity, and the 
advantages of a separation from Great Britain ; dwelt on the 
neglect and insult with which their petitions had been treated 
by the king, and on the vindictive spirit which showed itself 
in the employment of German troops to compel the colonists 
to unconditional submission ; and concluded by urging the 
present time as the most suitable for separation, because it 
had become the desire of the communities which the dele- 
gates represented.^ Another account snys, that he urged 
the immediate dissolution — and the questions of time and 
form were really the only open questions — of all political 
connection of the colonies with Great Britain, ^ from the 
voice of the people, from the necessity of the measure in 
order to obtain foreign assistance, from a regard to consis- 
tency, and from the prospects of glory and happiness which 
opened beyond the war, to a free and independent people." ^ 
This speech was replied to by John Dickinson. He began 
an elaborate argument in favor of the postponement of a 
declaration by saying, that the member from Massachusetts 
introduced his defence of a declaration by invoking a 
heathen god, but that he should begin his objections to it by 
solemnly invoking the Governor of the Universe so to influ- 
ence the minds of the members, that if the proposed measure 
was for the benefit of America, nothing which he should say 
against it might make the least impression.^ He said : — 

" I value the love of my country as I ought, but I value 
my country more, and I desire this illustrious assembly 
to witness the integrity, if not the policy of my conduct. 
The first campaign will be decisive of the controversy. The 
declaration will not strengthen us by one man, or by the 
least supply, while it may expose our soldiers to additional 

1 Bancroft, viii. 452. 

2 Ramsay's History of the American Revolution, i. 341. 

8 Ibid., i. 341. This remark of Dickinson, with the positive statement of Dr. 
Ramsay and others, that Adams invoked the god of eloquence, occasioned the letter 
of 1807 already cited. 



5o6 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

cruelties and outrages. "Without some prelusory trials of 
our strength, we ought not to commit our country upon an 
alternative where to recede would be infamy, and to jjersist 
might be destruction. With other powers it would rather 
injure than avail us. Foreign aid will not be obtained but 
by our actions in the field, which are the only evidences of 
our union and vigor that will be respected. Before such an 
irrevocable step shall be taken, we ought to know the dispo- 
sition of the great powers ; and how far they will permit 
any one or more of them to interfere. The erection of an 
independent empire on this continent is a phenomenon in 
the world ; its effects Avill be immense, and may vibrate 
round the globe. The formation of our governments, and 
an agreement on the terms of our confederation, ought to 
precede the assumption of our station among sovereigns. 
When this is done, and the people perceive that they and 
their posterity are to live under well regulated constitutions, 
they will be encouraged to look forward to independence, as 
completing the noble system of their political happiness. 
The objects nearest to them are now enveloped in clouds, 
and those more distant appear confused ; the relation one 
citizen is to bear to another, and the connection one State 
is to have with another, they do not, cannot know. The 
boundaries of the colonics ought to be fixed before the 
declaration. The unlocated lands ought also to be solemnly 
appropriated to the benefit of all. Upon the whole, when 
things shall thus be deliberately rendered firm at home and 
favorable abroad, then let America, ' Attollens humeris 
faniam et fata nepotum,' bearing up her glory and the 
destiny of her descendants, advance with majestic steps and 
assume her station among the sovereigns of the world." ^ 
No member immediately rose to reply to tliis speech ; 

1 Adams says in his Autobiography, written twenty -nine years afterward (1805), 
while Dickinson had published his speech, he made no preparations befoichand, and 
never committed any minutes of his to writing. His letter is dated 1S07 The citar 
ti.ns in the text are copied from Bancroft, viii. ■i52 456. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 537 

and, after waiting some time, Adams again took the floor, 
saying that he believed he could answer to the satisfaction 
of the House all the arguments which had been produced, 
notwithstanding the ability they displayed, and the eloquence 
with which they had been enforced.^ No further account of 
liis reply has appeared. James Wilson now said tl ut he 
had at an early day foreseen independence as the probable, 
though not the intended result of the contest, and had uni- 
formly declared in his place that he never would vote for it 
contrary to his instructions ; nay, that he regarded it as 
something more than presumption to take a step of such 
importance without express instructions and authority. For 
ought that act to be the act of four or five individuals, or 
should it be the act of the people of Pennsylvania ? But 
now that their authority was given by the conference of 
committees, he stood on very different ground, and could no 
longer agree with his colleague.^ Others spoke, — Paca of 
Maryland, " who behaved nobly," McKean, of Delaware, 
and Edward Rutledgc being named. Samuel Adams could 
hardly have kept silent during a long debate on a question 
in which he was so deeply interested. There is, however, 
no report of what they or others said. Imagination alone 
can supply the picture of a scene indelibly impressed on 
the minds of those present.^ 

The question before the committee was the portion of the 
motion relating to independence, submitted by the Virginia 
delegates on the 7th of June. The New-York members 
read their instructions, and were excused from voting. Of 
the three delegates from Delaware, Rodney was absent, 
McKean was in the affirmative, Read in the negative, and 
thus the vote of this colony was lost. South Carolina was 
in the negative ; and so was Pennsylvania, by the votes of 
Dickinson, Willing, Morris, and Humphries, against those 

1 Works of John Adams, iii. 55. 2 Bancroft's History, viii. 456." 

8 "A scene which has ever been present to my mind," George Walton, a dele- 
gate from Georgia, wrote, Nov. 7, 1789. John Adams's Works, iii. 56. 



538 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

of Franklin, Morton, and Wilson. Nine Colonies — New 
Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New 
Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia — 
voted in the affirmative. The committee rose, the President 
resumed the chair, and Harrison reported the resolution as 
having been agreed to. Edward Rutledge, of South Caro- 
lina, said, that were the vote postponed till the next day, he 
believed that his colleagues, though they disapproved of the 
resolution, would then join in it for the sake of unanimity. 
The final question, in accordance with this request, was 
postponed until the next day ; but it was agreed to go into a 
committee of the whole then on the draft of the declaration. 
On the second day of July, probably fifty memljers were 
present in Congress. After disposing of the business of 
the morning, it resumed the consideration of the resolution 
on independence, and probably without much debate pro- 
ceeded to vote. McKean sent an express to Rodney, at 
Dover, which procured his attendance, and secured the vote 
of Delaware in tiic affirmative ; while the same result was 
reached for Pennsylvania by Dickinson and Morris absent- 
ing themselves, and allowing Franklin, Wilson, and Morton 
to give the vote against Willing and Humphries.^ The 
South-Carolina delegates concluded to vote for the measure. 
Thus twelve colonies united in adopting the following reso- 
lution : " That these United Colonies are and of right ought 
to be free and independent States ; that they are absolved 
from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political 
connection between them and the State of Great Britain is 
and ought to be totally dissolved." And now John Adams 
wrote, in a generous enthusiasm : " The greatest question 
has been decided which ever was debated in America, and a 
greater perhaps never was or will be decided among men." ^ 
The United Colonies were then decreed the political unit of 
the United States of America. 

1 Thomas McKean to Jolin Adams, Aug. 20, 1813. Nilcs's Register, xii. 308. 
Also (li)iil., 278) Letter to William Corkle & Son, June IG, 1817. 

2 Letter dated July 3, 1776. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 539 

Congvoss went immediately into committee of the whole 
to consider the draft of a Declaration of Independence, or 
the form of announcing the fact to the world. During the 
remainder of that day, and during the sessions of the third 
and fourth, the phraseology, allegations, and principles of 
this paper were subjected to severe scrutiny. Its author re- 
lates : " The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in Eng- 
land worth keeping terms with still haunted the minds of 
many. For this reason, those passages which conveyed 
censure on the people of England were struck out, lest they 
should give them offence. The clause, too, reprobating the 
enslaving the inhabitants of Africa was struck out in com- 
plaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never 
attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who, on 
the contrary, wished to continue it. Oar Northern brethren 
also, I believe, felt a little tender under those censures ; for 
though their people had very few slaves themselves, yet they 
had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others." ^ 
The striking out of the passage declaring the slave trade 
" piratical warfare against human nature itself," was deeply 
regretted by many of that generation. Other alterations 
were for the better, making the paper more dispassionate 
and terse, and — what was no small improvement — more 
brief and exact. On the evening of the fourth, the com- 
mittee rose, when Harrison reported the Declaration as 
having been agreed upon. It was then adopted, as follows, 
by twelve States, unanimously, as " The Declaration by the 
Representatives of The United States of America in Con- 
gress assembled " : — 

" When, in the course of human events, it becomes neces- 
sary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have 
connected them with another, and to assume among the 
powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which 
the laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent 
respect for the opiiyons of mankind requires that they 

1 Memoirs of Jefferson, i. 15. 



540 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

should declare the causes which impel them to the separ- 
ation. 

" We hold these truths to be self-evident — that all men are 
created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with 
certain unalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness ; that, to secure these rights, 
governments are instituted among men, deriving their just 
powers from the consent of tlie governed ; that whenever 
any form of govTernment becomes destructive of these ends, 
it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to 
institute new government, laying its foundation on such 
principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to 
them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happi- 
ness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments, 
long established, should not be changed for light and tran- 
sient causes ; and accordingly all experience hath shown, 
that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are 
sufferal)le, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms 
to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of 
abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, 
evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, 
it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such govern- 
ment, and to provide new guards for their future security. 
Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies ; and 
such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter 
their former systems of government. The history of the 
present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated in- 
juries and usurpations, all having in direct object the estab- 
lishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove 
this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. 

" He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome 
and necessary for the public good. 

" He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of imme- 
diate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their 
operation, till his assent should bo obtained ; and, when so 
suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 541 

" He has refused to pass other laws for the accommoda- 
tion of large districts of people, miless those people would 
relinquish the right of representation in the legislature — a 
right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. 

" He has called together legislative bodies, at places unu- 
sual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their 
public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into 
compliance with his measures. 

" He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for 
opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights 
of tlie people. 

" He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to 
cause others to be elected ; whereby the legislative powers, 
incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at 
large, for their exercise ; the State remaining, in the mean 
time, exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, 
and convulsions witliin. 

" He has endeavored to prevent the population of these 
States ; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturaliza- 
tion of foreigners ; refusing to pass others, to encourage 
their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new 
appropriations of lands. 

" He has obstructed the administration of justice, by 
refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. 

" He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the 
tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their 
salaries. 

" He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent 
hither swarms of officers to harass our people and cat out 
their substance. 

" He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing 
armies, without the consent of our legislatures. 

" He has affected to render the military independent of, 
and superior to, the civil power. 

" He has combined with others, to subject us to a juris- 
diction, foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by 



542 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

our laws ; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legis- 
lation : — 

" For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us : 

"For protecting them by a mock trial, from punishment 
for any murders which they should commit on the inhabi- 
tants of these States : 

" For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world: 

" For imposing taxes on us, without our consent : 

" For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial 
by jury : 

" For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pre- 
tended offences: 

" For abolishing the free system of English laws in a 
neighbouring province, establishing therein an arbitrary gov- 
ernment, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at 
once an example and fit instrument for introducing the 
same absolute rule linto these colonies : 

" For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valu- 
able laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our gov- 
ernments : 

" For suspending our own legislatures, and declai'ing 
themselves invested with power, to legislate for us in all 
cases whatsoever. 

" He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out 
of his protection, and waging vrar against us. 

" He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt 
our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. 

" He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign 
mercenaries, to complete the works of death, desolation, and 
tyranny, already begun, with circumstances of cruelty and 
perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, 
and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. 

" He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on 
the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become 
the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall 
themselves by their hands. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 543 

" He lias excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and 
has endeavoured to bring on tlic inhabitants of our frontiers, 
the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare 
is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and 
conditions. 

" In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned 
for redress, in the most humble terms : our repeated peti- 
tions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince 
whose chai'actcr is thus marked, by every act which may 
define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. 

" Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British 
brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of 
attempts made by their legislature, to extend an unwarrant- 
able jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the 
circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We 
have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and 
we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred, 
to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably inter- 
rupt our connexions and correspondence. They, too, have 
been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We 
must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces 
our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of man- 
kind — enemies in war ; — in peace, friends. 

" We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States 
of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to 
the Supreme Judge of the world, for the rectitude of our 
intentions. Do, in the name and by the authority of the good 
people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that 
these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, Free 
and Independent States ; that they are absolved from all 
allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connex- 
ion between them and the State of Great Britain is and 
ought to be totally dissolved ; and that as Free and Indepen- 
dent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude 
peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all 
other acts and things which Independent States may of 



544 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

right do. And for tlie support of this dedaration, with a 
firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we 
mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and 
our sacred honor." 

Congress ordered that the Declaration be authenticated ; 
printed under the direction of the committee that reported 
it ; ^ sent to the several committees and conventions, and the 
commanding officers of the Continental troops ; and pro- 
claimed in each of the United States, and at the head of the 
army. A committee — Franklin, John Adams, and Jeffer- 
son — were directed to prepare a device for the seal of "The 
United States of America." 

The Declaration went forth authenticated by John Han- 
cock, President, and Charles Thomson, Secretary. It was 
received in the new convention of New York on the 9th of 
July, and referred to a committee of which John Jay was 
the chairman, who reported the same day, when the conven- 
tion, pronouncing the reasoning of the Declaration cogent 
and conclusive, resolved to support it with their fortunes 

1 A letter dated Philadelphia, July 5, in the "Continental Journal," Aug. 8, 
1776, says the Declaration was "published yesterday." On the 5th the President 
transmitted copies, printed probably on a broadside, to several assemblies. The 
"Pennsylvania Evening Post" of Saturday, the 6th, contains it, signed by order of 
Congress, John Hancock, President, and Charles Thomson, Secretary. It is printed 
with great accuracy. It is in the " Mar^dand Gazette " of July 11, the "Continental 
Journal" (Boston) of July IS, and "New-Hampshire Gazette" of July 20. A 
synopsis of it is in the " Virginia Gazette" of July 19, and in full in that of the 2Gth. 

Jefferson's original draft was printed in "Niles's Weekly Register" of .July 3, 
1813, from a copy in his handwriting, found among the papers of George Wythe, 
and communicated by his executor to the editor of the "Richmond Inquirer." It 
is said there had been "much curiosity and speculation " about this paper. 

In 1824 Timothy Pickering in his "Review" of the Cunningham (Correspondence 
printed the original draft from a copy made from one in Jefferson's handwriting — 
the same which he sent on the 8th of July to Richard Henry Lee. 

In 1840 it was printed in the " Papers of .lames Madison " purchased by Con- 
gress, from the copy which Jefferson sent in his own handwriting to Madison. 

K facsimile of the original draft, with the interlineations of Franklin and Adams, 
and the erasures, was printed in 1829, in Randolph's '" Memoir, Correspondence, 
and Miscellanies," from the papers of 'J'homas Jefferson, from Jeffer.son's own copy; 
in 1853, in "The Writings of Thomas Jelierson," printed from his original manu- 
scripts in the Department of State, purchased by Congress, and edited by H. A. 
Washington; in 1858, in the "Life of Thomas Jefferson," by Henry S. Randall. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 545 

and their lives, and ordered it transmitted to the county 
committees. They announced their action as that of " The 
representatives of the State of New York." 

Thus the Declaration of Independence hecame the act of 
the Tliirtecn United States. 

According to the journals, Congress, on the 19th of July, 
resolved that the " declaration, passed on the 4th, be fairly 
engrossed on parchment, with the title and style of ' The 
unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of 
America,' and that the same, when engrossed, be signed by 
every member of Congress." On the second day of August 
the journals say, " The Declaration being engrossed, and 
compared at the table, was signed by the members." ^ On 



1 This manuscript is preserved in the office of the Secretary of State. In the 
proposals to print an engraving of it, witli facsimiles of the signers, dated March, 
1816 (Niles's Register, Vol. x. 310), it is said there was no authentic copy of it in 
print. This splendid engraving was published in November, 1819. K facsimile of 
the engrossed copj' is in the 5th Series of Force's Archives, i. 1595. The copy in the 
text is printed from tiiis copy. 

The statements relative to signing the Declaration are conflicting. Jefierson 
states that it was signed generally on the ith (Memoirs i. 94), and he in other 
places reiterates this statement, but this manuscript is not known to be extant. 
(Randall's Jefferson, i. 171). John Adams, on the 9th of July (Works, ix. 417), says, 
•'As soon as an American seal is prepared, I conjecture the Declaration wUl be 
superscribed by all the members." 

Thomas McKean, in a letter dated June 16, 1817 (Niles's Register, xii. 280) says: 
" Probably copies with the names then signed to it were printed in August, 1776." 
One of the signers, Thornton, was not a member until Nov. 4. But the list was 
otherwise incorrect. The early lists, in law books and other works, omitted the 
name of McKean, which is not in the list printed by Ramsay in 1789 (vol. i. 346), 
nor in the "■'Journals of Congress," published by authority, by Folwell, in 180 
(vol. ii. 232). The fifty-six signers are as follows: — 

New Hampshire — Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton. 

Massachusetts — John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat 
Paine, Elbridge Gerry. 

Rhode Island — Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery. 

Connecticut — Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver 
Wolcott. 

New York — William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris. 

New Jersey — Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John 
Hart, Abram Clark. 

Pennsylvania — Robert INIorris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Mor- 
ton, George Ch-mer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross. 

Delaware — Cajsar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean. 

35 



546 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

the 20th of January, 1777, it was voted that an authenti- 
cated copy, with the names of the signers, be sent to each 
of tlie United States, with the. request that it be put on 
record. 

There is no mention of the service of the members who 
took part in the proceedings except what has been related. 
Richard Henry Lee and George Wythe returned to Virginia, 
and were not in Congress when the question was taken ; and 
there is not a word of Gerry, of Franklin, or of Samuel 
Adams, — who could hardly have kept entirely silent. 
There is nothing recorded of Hancock, whose bold signature 
stands first and most conspicuous. Daniel Webster describes 
Samuel Adams as "of the deepest sagacity, the clearest 
foresight, and the profoundest judgment in men," and as 
one who hungered and thirsted for the independence of his 
country.^ Some of the signers were not members when the 
question was taken ; but it does not follow that they had no 
part in bringing it about. Large service was rendered on 
local fields by some who had been or were to be members : 
among them Gadsden in South Carolina, Nelson in Virginia, 
Chase in Maryland, McKean in Delaware, Rush in Pennsyl- 
vania, Sergeant in New Jersey, Jay in New York ; and 
Thornton signed the first State paper suggesting independ- 
ence in New Haiiipshire, and signed the Declaration, though 
not a member until November. 

John Dickinson and John Adams stand forth the most 
prominently in the debates, and their great encounter was 
on the 1st of July. The speech of Dickinson, delivered on 
that day, is preserved entire, — the only speech delivered in 

Maryland — Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of 
Carrolton. 

Virginia — George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin 
Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton. 

North Carolina — William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn. 

South Carolina — Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., 
Arthur Middleton. 

Georgia — Button Gwinnett, Lj'man Hall, George Walton. 

1 Works of Daniel Webster, i. 136. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 547 

these debates known to be extant. It is clear, strong, 
marked bj great ability ; and in making it he courageously 
acted up to his convictions. He breasted the popular will. 
He required too many great questions to be settled at once, 
and thus embodied the conservatism that unwisely holds 
back. He ran counter to the time, and his voice was no 
longer that of an accepted leader. A few sentences only 
of the great speech of John Adams on this occasion remain. 
He then was fully roused ; for on that debate of nine hours 
" all the powers of the soul had been distended with the 
magnitude of the object" ;i and of this speech he wrote, " I 
wish some one had remembered the speech, for it is almost 
the only one I ever made that I wish was literally pre- 
served." ^ The tribute of his contemporaries to this grand 
service is full and unreserved. " John Adams," said Jeffer- 
son to Daniel Webster, "was our Colossus on the floor. He 
was not graceful, nor elegant, nor remarkably fluent, but he 
came out occasionally with a power of thought and expres- 
sion, that moved us from our seats." ^ Madison well recol- 
lected that " his fellow-laborers in the cause from Virginia 
filled every mouth in that State with the praises due to the 
comprehensiveness of his views, the force of his arguments, 
and the boldness of his patriotism."* 

The high honor of having been the author of the Declara- 
tion belongs to Jefferson ; for the changes by the committee 
of the whole in the original draft altered neither the arrange- 
ment, the tone, nor the general character. His genius for 
political science, and his talent of compressing sentiment 
into maxims, enabled him to embody so faithfully the cur- 
rent thought of his countrymen as to mirror the soul of the 
nation. This, and not originality, is the crowning merit of 
this immortal paper. In preparing it neither book nor pam- 
phlet was referred to ; but so thoroughly imbued was its 

1 Jefferson's Letter, dated Paris, Aug. 29, 1787. 

2 John Adams to Mercy Warren, 1807. 

3 Titknor's relation in Curtis's Life of Webster, vol. i. 589. 
* Writings, voL iii. 204. 



548 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

author with the republican spirit of the Parhamentarians of 
the times of the Commonwealth, that the paper reflects their 
dignity of thought and solidity of style. " To say that he 
performed his great work well would be doing him injustice. 
To say that he did it excellently well, admirably well, would 
be inadequate and halting praise. Let us rather say, that 
he so discharged the duty assigned him, that all Americans 
may well rejoice that the work of drawing the title-deed of 
their liberties devolved upon him," ^ 

To Avelcome this great State-paper, thousands in all the 
States rested from their daily toil, and gathered at their accus- 
tomed places of meeting. The occasion of its proclamation 
was the event of the day in hundreds of villages, towns, cities, 
and counties. The record of the proceedings is voluminous. 
There were imposing assemblages that listened to the read- 
ing from the balcony of the Old State House, in Boston ; in 
New Hampshire, at Portsmouth and Amherst ; in Rhode 
Island, at Newport and Providence ; in New York, at the 
City Hall ; in New Jersey, at Trenton ; in Delaware, at 
Dover ; at Philadelphia, in Independence Square, when the 
Liberty Bell of the State House was rung ; in Maryland, at 
the Baltimore Court House ; in Virginia, at Williamsburg ; 
in North Carolina, at Halifax ; in Georgia, at Savannah ; and 
at other places too many to enumerate. Similar terms of 
description will apply to most of the proceedings. The 
civil authorities were present. The military paraded, bear- 
ing the standard of the United States. The salutes were 
often by thirteen divisions. The population gathered as on 
gala days. The Declaration was read amidst the acclama- 
tions of the people, mingled with the roll of drums and the 
roar of cannon. Then followed the feast and the toasts, 
and in the evening bonfires and illuminations, with the re- 
moving or destruction of the emblems of royalty."^ 

1 Works of Daniel Webster, i. 127. Jefterson gave the portable writing-desk on 
which he wrote the Declaration to .Joseph Coolidgc, Jr. It is now in Boston. — 
Mass. Hist, See. Proceediiififs, 1855-58, p. 151. 

2 The newspapers contain full accounts of those occasions. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 549 

In some celebrations there were peculiar features. Such 
was the case in the rural town of Amherst, New Hampshire, 
the shire-town of Hillsborough County. The committee of 
safety required the Declaration to be proclaimed by the 
sheriff. Ho, accompanied by the greater number of the 
magistrates of the county, and a large body of citizens, 
escorted by the militia, marched to the church, and attended 
prayers. Then the procession went to the parade ground, 
and there formed in a circle round an eminence. Here the 
sheriff on horseback, with a drawn sword in his hand, read 
the Declaration. " After that was done, three cheers were 
given, colors were flying, drums beating ; the militia fired 
in thirteen divisions, attended with universal acclamations." 

In Savannah, Georgia, the executive officers and council 
met in the Council Chamber and listened to the Declaration ; 
then proceeded to the square before the Assembly House, 
where it was read before a great concourse, after which the 
Grenadiers and Light Infantry fired a general volley. Then 
a procession, with the Grenadiers in front, the Provost 
Marshal with his sword drawn, the Secretary with the 
Declaration, and the civil authorities, closing with the Light 
Infantry, went to the Liberty Pole, where they met the 
Georgia Battalion, when there was another reading, and 
salutes were fired. The procession then went to the Bat- 
tery, where the paper having been read for the last time, 
cannon were again discharged. The principal gentlemen 
dined in a grove of cedar trees, and in the evening the town 
was illuminated.^ 

A few of the narratives report the words spoken on these 
occasions. In Delaware, at Dover, a picture of the king 
was carried by a drummer in a procession ; the military 
marched to slow time, and then formed in a circle round a 
fire, when the president of the day committed the portrait 

1 Washington, on proclaiming His Majesty's Declaration of War against France, 
in 1756, at Winchester, Va., marched his troops to several places, where it was read. 
Sei p. 134. 



650 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC, 

to the flames, saying, " Compelled by strong necessity thus 
we destroy even the shadow of that king who refused to 
reign over a free people ; " on which three loud huzzas 
rose from the multitude assembled.^ In Savannah, in the 
evening, an effigy of tlie king was borne in a procession, 
and buried before the Court House ; the speaker saying 
" that George the Third had most flagrantly violated liis 
coronation oath, trampled upon the constitution of the 
country and the sacred rights of mankind. . . . Let us 
remember America is free and independent ; that she is, 
and will be, with the blessing of the Almighty, great among 
the nations of the earth. Let this encourage us in well 
doing, to fight for our rights and privileges, for all that is 
near and dear to us. May God give us His blessing and let 
all the people say Amen."^ At Cumberland, New Jersey, 
the gathiering was large, the procession moved to the court 
house, and, after the reading and an address, the peace 
officers' staves having the king's coat of arms were burned 
in the streets. The address by Dr. Elmer, the chairman of 
the committee, — one of the few things of this kind preserved 
entire, — is admirable, embodying the spirit of fidelity to 
law, as well as to liberty, characteristic of the time. He 
said that the Declaration had been brought about by 
unavoidable necessity, and had been conducted with a pru- 
dence and moderation becoming the wisest and best of 
men ; that a new era in politics had commenced ; that no 
people under heaven was ever favored with a fairer oppor- 
tunity of laying a sure foundation for future grandeur and 
happiness ; and that it was impossible for any one possessed 
of the spirit of a man who is a friend to the United States, 
to stand by, an idle spectator, while his country was strug- 
gling and bleeding in her own necessary defence, and that 
all such ought to be shunned as enemies or despised as 
cowards.-'' 

1 Biography of the Signers, viii. 100. 

2 Force's Archives, 5th Series, i. 882. » Ibid., 811. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 551 

No State paper was ever more widely circulated, or more 
Ihoroughly read, or more heartily indorsed, than the Declar- 
ation. The act it justified was hailed everywhere with a 
feeling as spontaneous as the joy that burst forth on the 
destruction of the tea, or the fraternity that was manifested 
on the passage of the Port Act. " Was there ever a reso- 
lution brought about," wrote Samuel Adams, " especially 
so important as this, without great internal tumults and 
violent convulsions ? The people, I am told, recognize the 
resolution as though it were a decree promulgated from 
Heaven." 

But the strictly official action, following the transmission 
of the Declaration by the President of Congress to the civil 
and military authorities, is far too important to be omitted. 

The President, in sending (July 5th and 6th) the Declar- 
ation to the assemblies and conventions, said that Congress 
had judged it necessary to dissolve all connection between 
Great Britain and the American colonies, and requested that 
its action be proclaimed in the manner that miglit be thought 
best. The approval of its terms was general. The Massa- 
chusetts Assembly (September 4) expressed their " entire 
satisfaction " with it ; their congratulations on the very 
general approbation it met with among all ranks of people 
in the United States ; and pledged their fortunes, lives, and 
sacred honor to support it. The South Carolina Assembly 
said (September 20) that it was with the most unspeakable 
pleasure they expressed their joy and satisfaction at the 
measure. " It is a decree now wortliy of America," say the 
council. " We thankfully receive the notification of and 
rejoice at it ; and we are determined at every hazard to 
endeavor to maintain it, that so, after we have departed, 
our children and tlieir latest posterity may have cause to 
bless our memory." The greater number, if not all, the 
Assemblies made similar pledges. The Maryland Assembly 
resolved that they would maintain the freedom and inde- 
pendence of the United States with their lives and fortunes ; 



652 THE EISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

the Noi'tli Carolina Council added, under the sanction of 
virtue, honor, and the sacred love of liberty and their coun- 
try ; the Pennsylvania Convention, in hehalf of themselves, 
their constituents, and before God and the world. These 
ratifications were printed, and in some instances, as was the 
case in Rhode Island, were read before great assemblages 
of the civil authorities, the military, and the people.^ The 
ratification was hearty and unanimous. These bodies or the 
councils ordered the Declaration to be published in due form 
in every locality ; as by the selectmen in every town, or by 
the sheriffs in every county, or by the clergy from the pulpit 
on Sunday. 

The President wrote to the Commander-in-Chief that Con- 
gress had for some time been occupied with one of the most 
important subjects that could possibly come before any as- 
sembly of men, which, in obedience to the duty they owed 
to themselves and to posterity, they had decided in the best 
manner they were able, and left the consequences to that 
Being who controls both causes and events, to bring about 
his own determinations ; and he requested Washington to 
proclaim the Declaration at the head of the army in the 
way he should think most proper. Washington (July 9) 
communicated it in a General Order, in which he said: 
" The General hopes this important event will serve as 
an incentive to every officer and soldier to act with fidel- 
ity and courage, as knowing that now the peace and safety 
of his country depend (under God) solely on the success 
of our arms ; and that he is now in the service of a State 
possessed of sufficient power to reward his merit and ad- 
vance him to the highest honors of a free country." The 

1 The following is the pledge of Rhode Island: — 

" State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. In General Assembly, July 
session, 1776. Tliis General Assembly, taking into the most serious consideration the 
Kesolution of the most Honorable the General Congress of the United States of Amer- 
ica, of the 4tb instiint, declaring the said States Free and Independent States, do 
approve tlie said Resolution; and do most solemnly engage that we vrill support the 
Baid General Congress, in the said Resolution, with our Lives and Fortunes. 

" A true copy. Henby Waed, Secretary ** 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 553 

Declaration was read at six o'clock that evening at the head 
of eacli brigade, when copies of it were freely distributed. 
*' The expressions and behavior," wrote Washington, " of 
officers and men, testified their warmest approbation." 
" Three cheers," writes another, " proclaimed the joy of 
every heart in the camp." In other places there were 
military parades and rejoicings. At Ticonderoga, " the 
language of every man's countenance was, " Now we are a 
free people, and have a name among the States of the 
world." 

This picture of joy and exultation of a free people — 
this pledge of life and fortune — had its shadow in the 
anguish in their homes created l)y internal war and foreign 
invasion. The land was poor, and the future all uncertain ; 
but the sentiment of nationality — the fresh emotion of 
country — was inspiration, and it was strength. The people 
were confident that their cause would raise up defenders ; 
and though the cloud of war made their horizon as the 
night, yet a living faith in the providence of God looked up 
in trust, and in the darkened sky saw golden hues that gave 
the promise of the morning. 

I have endeavored to traverse the course of events — as 
one prepared the way for another — by which the subjects 
of thirteen dependent colonies became transformed into 
citizens of independent States. They undoubtedly had a 
right, at the outset, to resist the obnoxious measures sepa- 
rately, or as distinct communities, each in its own way, and 
each fighting its own battle, as was insidiously suggested by 
the tory leaders : they might have continued this policy in 
declaring their independence ; and if success, and not ruin, 
had Ijeen the result, they might have decreed that each 
should have external as well as internal powers of sover- 
eignty, or the right to deal with foreign nations as well as 
the right to regulate their "internal police."^ But they did 
not choose this course. They strove so persistently as dis- 

1 Reports of Decisions in the Supreme Court Curtis, i. 100. 



654 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

tiiict communities to unite in general measures of resistance, 
bliat for ten years Union was the key to their politics. It 
grew to he a conviction that a common country was a neces- 
sity ; and when they came to act on the large scale of 
assuming national powers, they declared their independence 
by a joint act. Hence they became one nation. The stages 
of the " national birth " ^ were the ripening of public senti- 
ment, the delegation of power, the resolution declaring the 
colonies independent States, the Declaration, and the ratifi- 
cation. Thus the united colonies assumed their station as 
The United States. That generation comprehended the 
greatness of the result. John Adams said that it would be 
" a memorable epoch in the liistory of America. I am apt 
to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding genera- 
tions as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be com- 
memorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of de- 
votion to God Almighty." ^ Colonel Haslett wrote : " I 
congratulate you on the important day which restores to 
every American his birthright ; a day which every freeman 
will record with gratitude, and the millions of posterity will 
read with rapture." ^ " It is the most important event," it 
was said in the press, " that has ever happened to the 
American colonies ; " and it was predicted that, as a grand 
era in their history, it would be celebrated by anniversary 
commemorations through a long succession of future ages.^ 

1 That decisive and important step (Independence) was taken jointly. We de- 
clared ourselves a nation by a joint, not by several acts. — President Jackson's 
proclamation, Dec. 10, 1832. 

Madison (Writings, lii. 337) terms the action of Virginia in instructing her 
delegates. May 15, 1776, "A link in the history of oin nationa. birth ' 

2 Letter dated July 3, 1776. The important portion of this celebrated letter was 
printed in " The Universal Asylum," for May, 1792. A few phrases are different 
in this copy from the letter in the works of John Adams, ix. 420. Thus: the words 
in the last, " of the thirteen," are not in the copy in the Asylum. The publica- 
tion for March has the two letters of Adams, dated July 1, 1776. 

8 Letter to Caesar Rodney, July 6, 1776. Biography of the Signers, viii. 99. 
Col. Haslett was the commander of the Continental troops in Delaware. 

4 The "Continental Journal," of Boston, of July 18, 1776, contains the following 
under the New York head: "The first (fourth V) instant was rendered remarkable 
by the most important event tl>at ever happened to the American colonies, — an 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 555 

The contemporary prophecy breathed the assurance that the 
entire series of divine dispensations, from the infant days of 
the fathers of America, was big with omens in her favor, 
and pointed to something great and good, — a faith that the 
grand chorus of praise and thanksgiving which greeted the 
Declaration would echo along the line of future generations. 
The Declaration not only announced that the heretofore 
dependent colonies were independent States, but that they 
were United States, meaning that the same Union which 
had existed between them as colonies, should be continued 
between them as States. ^ Hence it has been termed the 
fundamental act of Union. ^ It was an embodiment of the 
public will, as a source of authority, when it was the will 
of the people composing one nation. ^ This act, however, 
did not consist merely in the Declaration issued by Con- 
gress, but embraced the prior action of the colonies con- 
ferring the power to adopt the measure, and the subsequent 
ratification of it by them. They were successive stages of 
one joint act, by wdiich the Declaration of Independence 
was ordained and established as organic law. It was a 
covenant of country in which the people recognized the 
providential development of Union. This Union had al- 
ready been consecrated by precious blood and revered mem- 
ories. Joint effort, common suffering, and patient labor, 
were to make it more perfect. Thus, hardening more and 
more into a mighty historic force, it was bequeathed as a 
sacred possession to posterity. 

event which -will doubtless be celebrated through a long succession of future ages 
by anniversaiy commemorations, and be considered as a grand era in the history of 
the American States. ()n this auspicious day the Representatives of the Thirteen 
United Colonies, by the Providence of God, unanimously agreed to and voted a 
Proclamation declaring the said colonies to be Free and Independent States, which 
was procliiimcd at the State House in Philadelphia, on Monday last, and received 
with Joyful acclamations." 

1 " A Brief Enquiry into the Nature and Character of our Federal Government," 
p. 40. This was written by Hon. Abel P. Upshur. 

2 Letters and other writings of James Madison, iii. 482. 

8 "In our complex system of polity, the public will, as a source of authority 
may be the will of the people as composing one nation," &c. — Madison's Letters 
&c., iii. 471). 



556 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

The Declaration established Union as a fundamental law 
by the side of the old law of Diversity. These laws appear 
as correlative forces, the existence of the one being depend- 
ent on that of the other ; and, in their normal requirements 
they are so free from antagonism or conflict, that fidelity 
to one cannot be treason to the other, while obedience to 
both — each paramount in its sphere — constitutes the life, 
harmony, and glory of the American political world. On 
the one rests local self-government ; on the other National 
Union. These historic ideas, entwined like warp and woof, 
influenced results along the whole line of the revolutionary 
struggle ; and, if as it advances, the Union appears to grow 
more stern and to become at times imperative, yet there is 
evinced the same determination to secure the right of local 
government in future from internal violation, as tliere had 
been in the past to protect it from foreign aggression. 

The Declaration transformed the sentiment of nationality 
into the fact of nationality ; thought into reality. This was 
the precise nature of the birth. The revolutionary leaders 
expressed it exactly, — the birth of the Nation. The 
transcendent fact of Union was now joined to the fact of a 
Republic. This Union was the country. This feeling of 
country does not come of compacts, cannot be improvised 
by great men, but is a growth, a development. It is the 
moral power, or the influence, or the spirit that precedes 
the letter or the forms of organic law. It sprang from the 
aggregate of habits, energies, affections — the inner life — 
of a free people, imbued with a traditionary republicanism 
to such a degree that they unconsciously applied it in their 
customs and laws, and thus attained a common character. 
They grew into the feeling that they had the right, as indi- 
viduals, to a country all their own, — a right to the incal- 
culable benefits of a Fatherland for which the language has 
no term, but a love for which Providence has planted deep 
in the human heart. Its sjurit breathes in national song. 
Its power is symbolized in the national flag. Americana 
felt the full force of the inspiration. 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 557 

The Declaration announced to the world the fact of The 
United States of America, and the justification of the fact. 
Tlie existence of a new political sovereignty de facto among 
the nations is sufficient to establish it dejure. Sovereignty, 
as used in matters of international law, is classed as exter- 
nal and internal. To render external sovereignty perfect, ' 
it is necessary that the established powers should act ; for 
it is by their recognition that a new power effects an en- 
trance into the society of nations, and enjoys its advantages, 
— enters upon the rights to which nations are entitled, and 
the duties they are called upon reciprocally to fulfil. Hence 
the external sovereignty of the United States was imperfect 
until other nations recognized its independence. It was not 
so with its internal sovereignty. This was at once complete 
within the limits of its own territory, and in all action re- 
lating to its own citizens, — none the less complete for its not 
having been recognized by foreign powers. Nor were its 
people any the less a nation for their not having attained an 
adequate general government. They delegated the power to 
sever their relations with the monarchy, and to take steps 
to form a new government or confederation, and not only 
left the local law undisturbed, but stipulated that each com- 
munity should retain full right over its domestic affairs ; and 
this right was by the Declaration freed from the interference 
of a foreign power. 

The Declaration changed the allegiance of the individual 
from the monarchy to the new political unit of the United 
States. Tliis power — in the language of Congress, in 
treaties, in official letters, in the thought of American 
statesmen, termed at once a nation — was in a state of war 
with Great Britain, and all persons residing in its jurisdic- 
tion were expected to govern themselves accordingly. The 
popular party accepted the declaration as though it were law ; 
just as they accepted the Association and the Resolve on 
local government. It was the title-deed of the individual 
unit to his right in a common country. It was a test of 



558 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

loyalty. Whoever upheld it was counted as a friend ; who- 
ever spoke against it was an enemy ; whoever took up arms 
against it was guilty of treason. 

The Declaration embodied the doctrine of the funda- 
mental equality of the race, and thus clothed abstract truth 
with vitalizing power. Its mighty sentences aver as self- 
evident " that all men are created equal : that they are 
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; 
that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness ; that to secure these rights governments are instituted 
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of 
the governed ; that whenever any form of government be- 
comes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people 
to alter or to abolish it and institute new government, laying 
its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers 
in such form, as shall to them seem most likely to effect 
their safety and happiness." This is the American theory, 
expressed " in words the memory of which can never die."^ 
It includes far more than it expresses : for by recognizing 
human equality and brotherhood, and the individual as the 
unit of society, it accepts the Christian idea of man as the 
basis of political institutions ; ^ and by proclaiming the right 
to alter them to meet the progress of society, it provided for 
the results of a tendency to look, not to the past, but to the 
future, for types of perfection that was brought into the 
world by Christianity.^ To maintain such a theory were 
fought the battles of the revolution. To build on it a 
worthy superstructure of government and law, was the work 
entered upon by heroes and sages, and bequeathed to pos- 
terity. 

The Declaration met the requirements of the American 
cause. " It has had a glorious effect — has made these col- 

1 Buckle's History of Civilization, i. 8-46. 

2 See pages 6 and 9 of this work. 

8 Maine's Ancient Law, 71. He remarks: "Ancient literature gives few or no 
hints of a belief that the progress of society is neccs-arily from worse to better." 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 559 

onies all alive," writes oiie.^ " The continent, should defend 
the continent," 2 was the great tlioiight of another. The 
conviction was general that American liberty could find 
permanent security only in the protection of an American 
Republic. The ideal of what this Republic ought to em- 
brace as to territory, the earnest devotion to principle, 
and the self-reliant Americanism of that remarkable era, 
are reflected in the terse war-cry : — 

" In vain do ye rely on foreign aid, 
By her own arm Columbia must be freed. 

Rise, then, my countrymen ! for fight prepare, 
Gird on your swords and fearless rush to war ! 
'Tis your bold task the generous strife to try, 
For your grieved Country nobly dare to die 
And empt\' all your veins for Liberty ! 
No pent-up Utica contracts your powers. 
But the whole boundless Continent is yours." 3 

A just cause, maintained in such a spirit, commanded 
the respect of the liberal world, '^ and its triumph was de- 
sired throughout Europe. " The Declaration " says one 
historian, " had an immense effect. . . . The cause was so 
noble and the effort was so grand, that there was not a 
doubt, not a hesitation, in the sentiment of the entire 
world, and that governments and the rulers of States 



1 Letter of William Whipple, a signer, July 16, 1776. Force's Archives, 5th 
Series, i. 368. 

2 Letter of Samuel Tucker, President of the New Jersey Provincial Congress, to 
John Hancock, July 9, 1776. Ibid , 139. 

s "A new Epilogue to Cato," in the "Continental Journal" of April 30, 1778. 
This was written by Jonathan Mitchell Sewall. It was altered by the author for 
his collection of Poems printed in 1801. 

•* It is curious to contrast this judgment with that of the tory school. Thomas 
Hutchmson was true to this school to the last. He pronounced the reasons of the 
Declaration "false and frivolous," and the counts '" a list of imaginary grievances." 
He avers that "there were men in the principal colonies who had independence in 
view " before the Stamp Act, and soon after the reduction of Canada. His " Stric- 
tures upon the Declaration of the Congress at Philadelphia, addressed to the Rt. 
Hon. the E of " is dated London, Oct. 15, 1776. He cites the Decla- 
ration in paragraphs, and denies the soundness of its principles, and the accuracy 
of nearly all its statements. This is a bitter partisan production. 



560 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

would seek glorj by thinking like the people."^ Buckle, 
sympathizing with " the great people who gloriously ob- 
tained their independence," remarks that their Declara- 
tion " ought to be hung up in the nursery of every king, 
and blazoned on the porch of every royal palace." ^ 

1 Histoire des rran9ais, par J. C. L. Simonde de Sismondi, &c., 30 p. 139. 
'■^ History of Civilization in England, London Ed., 1857, i. 846. 



CHAPTER XIL 

How THE People by ordaixing the Constitution of the United 
States instituted Republican Government. 

1776 TO 1790. 

When the people of the United States assumed rank as a 
nation, the conviction was general that a common country 
and national government were essential to promote the puh- 
lic welfare. The first result they reached of a confederation, 
matured in Congress and ratified by the legislatures of the 
States, created a government depending on the local author- 
ities to give effect to its decrees, and proved inadequate to 
meet their wants. When this became manifest, a general 
convention ordained and established a " Constitution for 
the United States," which was ratified by the people, act- 
ing as separate communities through local conventions. 
They thus instituted a self-sustaining Republican govern- 
ment. 

By the Declaration of Independence the sovereignty of 
the thirteen colonies passed from the crown to the people 
dwelling in them, not as an aggregate body, but as forming 
States ^ endowed with the functions necessary for their sepa- 

1 President Monroe, in tracing American institutions to their origin, says that 
two important facts are disclosed. "Tiie first is, tliat in wresting the power, or 
what is called the sovereigntj', from the crown, it passed directly to the people. 
The second, that it passed directly to the people of each colony, and not to the 
people of all the colonies in the aggregate: to thirteen distinct communities, and 
not to one. To these two facts, each contributing its equal proportion, I am in- 
clined to think we nre, in an eminent degree, indebted to the success of our Revolu- 
tion." — Niles's Register, xxii. 366. 

"The people of the United States must be considered attentively in two very dif 
fereut views, — as forming one nation great and united, and as forming at the same 

36 



562 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

rate existence ; also States in union. Whoever had refused 
to acquiesce in the decisions of the head of the Union, 
Congress, had been summarily dealt with. The individual 
had been disarmed, the assembly had been annulled, the 
governor had been imprisoned : the Union in its sphere 
was paramount. 

Congress for several years continued to be the political 
power. As the war began, so it virtually ended, under its 
direction. The spirit of the people, and the necessity of 
combining their strength, supplied the place of efficient po- 
litical machinery.^ " In every stage of the conflict," says a 
contemporary, " from its commencement until March, 1781, 
the powers of Congress were undefined, but of vast extent. 
. . . Never was a movement so spontaneous, so patriotic, 
so efficient. The nation exerted its whole faculties in sup- 
port of its rights and of its independence." ^ "Whatever 
power Congress had exercised, even to the creation of a 
dictator, was acquiesced in by the people. This power, 
however, was strictly influence, not government. It was 
foreseen that, although enthusiasm and patriotism might be 
relied on in the struggle for independence, yet after it was 
over American liberty could be secure only in American 
law.^ Not one of the popular leaders, perhaps, had a just 
conception of the political machinery which the public needs 
required ; and as to the powers to be conferred, beyond the 
few of a national character already vested in the Union, all 
was vague. There were, however, in the public mind 
sharply defined objects ; and " it is impossible to overrate 

time a number of separate States, to that nation subordinate, but independent as to 
their own interior government. This very important distinction must be continually 
before our eyes. If it be properly observed, every thing will appear regular and 
proportioned : if it be neglected, endless confusion and intricacy will unavoidably 
ensue." — James Wilson's Works, ii. 122 

1 Bancroft, ix. 57. 

2 President Monroe. Niles's Register, xxii. 364. 

8 A different view is taken by high authority Thus John Quincy Adams, in 
his Jubilee Oration, says of the people: "In the enthusiasm of their first sponta- 
neous, unstipulated, unpremeditated union, they had flattered themselves that no 
general government would be required," &c. — p. 10. See pp. 479-483. 



ESTABLISHMENT OF EEPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 563 

the importance to a nation or profession to have a distinct 
object to aim at in the pursuit of improvement." ^ Tlie 
general aim as presented in the newspapers was a system 
of organic law adequate to meet the requirements of a people 
who deemed local self-government and national union to be 
institutions as real as habeas corpus and trial by jury. 

The work was going on when the Declaration was made. 
The people of six colonies, under the advice of Congress, 
liad established governments independent of the crown, 
which governments Congress, as the political power, recog- 
nized as the public authority. " From the moment of the 
Declaration," it was said, " every thing assumed a new 
appearance." New terms came into use. The colonies had 
been transform.ed into States ; and hence Congress habitu- 
ally designated them as " Sovereign, Free, and Independent 
States," and referred to these States in Union as a nation 
Thus Congress declined to receive peace-commissioners, 
because they did not present letters of credence "to an inde- 
pendent State ; " and they would listen only to such terms 
as might consist" with the honor of an independent nation." 
In fact the people of thirteen States, imbued with the spirit 
of a new political life, which gave them a distinctive charactei 
as Americans, by working together for years to vindicate 
their rights, and by combining their strength to defend them, 
had grown unconsciously into a nation.^ The work of con- 

1 Maine's Ancient Law, 75. 

2 Journals of Congress, iv. 253, v. 175, vii. 52. In an ordinance, " a free and 
independent nation," vii. 59. The Revolutionary statesmen, habitually, in their 
correspondence use the word "nation." It will be found in the diplomatic corre- 
spondences of Jefferson and John Adams, and in the treaties the}' made. 

8 " Nation. A body of people inhabiting the same country, or united under the 
same sovereign or government, as the English nation or French nation." — Web- 
ster's Dictionary. 

" When any society of men, or body politic, is united for the purposes of govern- 
ment and for mutual protection, we are accustomed to call such society or body 
politic a state or nation." — EncycloptEdea Americana, Law of Nations. 

"By the Declaration of Independence the colonies became a separate nation 
from Great Britam." — Tucker's Commentaries on Blackstone, vol. ii. App. 54. 
"On which day they declared themselves an independent and sovereign nation." — 
Ibid, i., part ii p. 101. 



56J: THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

structing government had necessarily to go on during the 
confusions of a distressing war, in the vicissitudes of which 
eleven of their capitals were occupied by the enemy. 

In New Jersey, several townships, after the imprisoimient 
of the Governor, petitioned the Provincial Congress to com- 
ply with the recommendation of the General Congress to 
form local governments. A committee, two days after its 
appomtment, reported (June 24, 1776) a constitution. The 
Provincial Congress was answering pressing appeals for 
powder and troops, disarming all " whose religious principles 
would not permit them to bear arms," preparing to meet an 
insurrection of the Tories, — in a word, exercising the powers 
of government. On the second day of July it adopted the 
" Constitution of New Jersey." The government thus 
established went into full operation, and lasted sixty-eight 
years. 

The Delaware Assembly advised the people of each of the 
three counties to choose ten delegates to meet in convention 
and ordain a government. The electors acted accordingly. 
The convention, on the 20th of September, 1776, adopted 
a constitution which continued sixteen years. 

In Maryland the convention, exercising powers of gov- 
ernment on the 3d of July, called a convention " for the 
express purpose of forming a new government by the au- 
thority of the people only, and enacting and ordering all 
things for the preservation, safety, and general weal of the 
colony." In pursuance of this call, delegates were elected 
and met in convention. On the 3d of November they agreed 
upon a Declaration of Rights, and on the 8th upon a con- 
stitution. This Convention also exercised the powers of 

"This Declaration has ever been considered, by the constituents? of those who 
made it, to niarl< the era of their birth as a nation." — George Tucker, Historj- of 
United States, i. 173. 

"In truth Anslo-America had, ahnost unknown to herself, grown into a sep- 
arate nation." — (Jordon's History of Pennsylvania, 5o8. 

" The Declaration passed .July 4, when the United States were declared to be, 
aud became in fact, an independent nation." — Sparks's Franklin, i. 406. 



ESTABLISHMENT OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 565 

government. The constitution thus formed was not changed 
for seventy-five years. 

In Pennsylvania the convention called to frame a consti- 
tution assembled in Philadelphia on the 12th of July, chose 
Franklin President, and assumed the powers of government. 
0]i the 28th of September the members signed a constitu- 
tion, declared it to be in force and ordered it to be laid 
jefure the Charter Assembly. This body, however, de- 
nounced the convention, and declared that no obedience 
was due to its ordinances. On the 26th '' the House rose." 
This was the end of the charter. The constitution was not 
satisfactory to a portion of the popular party, and a large 
public meeting held in Independence Square instructed their 
delegates to propose amendments.^ The following year, 
when the State was threatened with invasion, Samuel Adams, 
Mr. Duer, and Richard Henry Lee, were appointed a com- 
mittee of Congress, to exercise, in conjunction with the high 
officers of the State, all authority requisite for the public 
safety ; and the commanders of the Continental forces were 
ordered to support their authority. The State amended its 
constitution in 1790. 

In North Carolina the Provincial Congress vested the 
political power in a council of safety consisting of twelve 
members, who (July 24, 1776) signed a pledge to carry 
out the decisions of the Provincial Congress and the Gen- 
eral Congress. The council recommended (Aug. 9, 1776) 
the good people of the State " to pay the greatest attention" 
to the election of delegates on the 15th of October, and par- 
ticularly to have this in view, that it will be their business 
" not only to make laws for the good government of, but 

1 In the ''Pennsylvania Evening Post" of March 13, 1777, is an appeal "To 
the citizens of Philadelpliia to amend the Constitution," in which it is said: "Massa- 
chusetts amended her constitution at Watertown, within four miles of Howe's army; 
New Jersey made her government, within sight of the whole bod}' of the British and 
Hessian troops, on Staten Island; Virginia made their government when Lord Dun- 
more was spreading devastation on every part of the seacoast; and New York is at 
this time framing her government, although several of their counties are now in 
possession of the euemv." 



566 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

also to form a constitution for this State ; that this last, as 
it is the corner-stone of all law, so it ought to be fixed and 
permanent ; and that as it is well or ill ordered it must tend 
in the first degree to promote the happiness or misery of 
the State." The delegates elected under this advice con- 
vened at Halifax, and on the 18th adopted a Bill of Rights 
and constitution which lasted sixty-nine years. 

In Georgia the government was vested in a Provincial 
Council. The President, by proclamation, called a conven- 
tion to meet at Savannah in October, on the warrant of the 
resolution of Congress of The Fifteenth of May. In a cir- 
cular letter the people were enjoined to adopt such govern- 
ment as would " conciliate the affections of the United 
States ; for under their shadow they would find safety, and 
preserve to themselves their invaluable rights," though 
" they should be purchased with garments rolled in blood." 
The convention adopted a constitution on the 5th of Febru- 
ary, 1777. It was peculiar in permitting the delegates to 
Congress to sit and vote in the assembly, in requiring this 
body to advise with the council in making laws, and in 
enacting that the vote in the council should be by counties. 
It was in force but eight years. 

In New York the draft of a constitution was submitted 
by John Jay, and was adopted by a convention which was 
exercising the powers of government, on the 20th of April, 
1777. It was ordained and declared by this body, " in the 
name and by the authority of the good people " of the State. 
It was pronounced superior to any of the constitutions, and 
^ forty-five years elapsed before a convention was called to 
<( amend it. 

A glance has been given at the six States which formed 
governments before the Declaration of Independence. South 
Carolina amended hers in 1778, " to accommodate it to that 
great event." Virginia did not alter hers until the mem- 
orable convention met in 1829. Rhode Island and Con- 
necticut did not displace their charters for many years. 



ESTABLISHMENT OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 567 

New Hampshire provided a new government in 1784. Mas- 
sachusetts, after rejecting one form mainly because it did 
not contain a Bill of Rights, adopted in 1780 a constitution 
which was not amended until 1820. It was not only an 
improvement on all that preceded it ; but the American 
method of preparing and establishing an organic law was 
pursued in all its stages. The existing authority called a 
convention, to be composed of delegates chosen as the rep- 
resentatives were, for the sole purpose of preparing a frame 
of government. These delegates assembled in convention, 
matured a constitution which had been reported by John 
Adams, Samuel Adams, and James Bowdoin ; and, after 
submitting it to the people to be voted on, adjourned. They 
reassembled to receive the returns of the votes. After 
examination they declared the constitution adopted. 

I have not space to analyze these constitutions. In all 
there were the three departments, — the Executive, Legisla- 
tive, and Judicial ; and th6se were rendered independent of 
one another. In most of the States the executive was ham- 
pered by a council. In Pennsylvania and Georgia the leg- 
islature consisted of one branch ; in the otliers of two 
branches, according to the custom of the colonial period. In 
four States the Governor was to be chosen by the people ; 
in the others, by the legislature. 

These constitutions were said to be " ordained, declared, 
established," and were not to be altered unless in the man- 
ner pointed out. Thus they assume to be modes of action 
different from ordinary acts of legislation. They were uni 
vei'sally recognized and held to be such. They were really 
decrees of the people as constituting the sovereignty. They 
prescribed the degrees and spheres of power by which their 
agents or "trustees" periodically chosen to make or admin- 
ister the laws were to be governed in their various depart- 
ments. Their sphere is internal government. Their 
provisions give validity and continuity to the body of local 
law. In no instance is there power conferred on these local 



568 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

agents to deal with foreign nations. This function had been 
vested by the same sovereignty in a congress ; and the con- 
stitutions contain provisions for the appointment of members 
to compose it. 

These governments went immediately into operation. 
Well-known characters were selected to fill the high offices. 
At the head of Virginia were Henry, and then Jeilbrson ; of 
Massachusetts, Hancock, and then Bowdoin ; of Maryland, 
Johnson ; of New Jersey, William Livingston ; of New 
Hampshire, successively, Weare, Langdon, and Sullivan ; 
of Connecticut, Trumbull ; of South Carolina, John Eut- 
ledge, and then Rawlins Lowndes ; of North Carolina, Cas- 
well ; of Pennsylvania, Joseph Reed, and subsequently 
Franklin ; of Delaware, George Read; of New York, George 
Clinton. Tliese names gave eclat to the new governments. 
This field of labor and honor proved more attractive than 
the national council ; and the work of enfranchising the 
local law from features derived from European traditions — 
the abolition of entails, primogeniture, and an established 
church — worthily employed the time and thought of the 
most able statesmen. 

The spectacle of republican order was a novelty in the 
political world. Congress characterized the result as thir- 
teen independent States formed with republican govern- 
ments, on the basis of " the riglits of human nature," say- 
ing that " the citizens of the United States were responsible 
for the greatest trust ever confided to a political society." ^ 
*' Thirteen governments," John Adams wrote, " thus 
founded on the natural authority of tlie people alone, with- 
out a pretence of miracle or mystery, which are destined to 
spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the 
globe, are a great point gained in favor of the riglits of 
mankind. The experiment is made, and has completely 
succeeded." 2 

1 Journals of Congress, 8, 201. Address to the States, April 2(5, 1 783, drawn 
by Madison. 

2 Defence of the American Constitution, by John Adams, Ed. Phil. 1787, 
Preface, xii- Dated Grosveuor Sauare. London, Jan. 1, 1787. 



ESTABLISHMENT OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 569 

In the mean time the formation of a republican govern- 
ment for the United States, or an 2V.merican Constitution, 
kept so continuously before the public mind, was awaited 
with deep interest. Several plans had appeared in the 
newspapers, and the subject was embraced in the motion 
on Independence, submitted in Congress by Richard Henry 
Lee, on the 7th of June, 1776. On the 11th they voted to 
appoint a committee " to prepare and digest the form of a 
confederation to be entered into between these colonies ; " and 
the next day they voted that it should consist of one member 
from each colony.^ On the 12th of July they reported arti- 
cles, which were drawn up by John Dickinson. Eighty 
copies were ordered to be printed for the use of the mem- 
bers, the strictest secrecy being enjoined as to their pub- 
lication.'-^ 

There is a voluminous history connected with the suc- 
cessive stages of this plan. '' One great question," John 
Adams wrote on the 29th of July, " is how we sliall vote, — 
whether each colony shall have one, or whether each shall 
have weight in proportion to its number or wealth, or im- 
ports or exports, or a compound ratio of all ? Another is 
whether Congress shall have authority to limit the dimen- 
sions of each colony, to prevent those which claim, by pi-oc- 
lamation, or commission, to the South Sea, so as to be 
dano'erous to the rest." 



1 The (Committee consisted of Josiah Bai'tlett of New Hampshire, Samuel Adams 
of Massachusetts, Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, 
Robert R. Livingston of New York, John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, Thomas 
McKean of Delaware, Thomas Stone of Maryland, Thomas Nelson, .Jr., of Vir- 
ginia, Joseph Hewes of North Carolina, Edward Rutledge of South Carolma, 
Button Gwinnett of Georgia. Francis Hopkinson, of New Jersey, was appointed 
June 28. 

- Notwithstanding the injunction of secrecy, a copy of the articles purporting 
• to have been signed by all the delegates the 4th of October" appeared in 
Europe. They difl'er materially from the articles as fiiialh' agreed upon, and num- 
ber sixteen. The articles adopted are thirteen in number. In the " Annual Regis- 
ter" for 17"G they follow the Declaration of Independence. Ihey are in '" Almon's 
Remembrancer " vol. iv. 240. 



570 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

Slavery is not named in this letter. The silence of the 
popular leaders on this question is remarkable. It was 
ignored as a political issue in general politics, though eman- 
cipation was freely advocated in pamphlets and newspapers. 
Nearly all the colonies sought to abolish the slave-trade ; in 
all emancipation was desired ; and stronger language could 
hardly have been chosen than that in which slavery was 
denounced at this period by the most illustrious of the Revo- 
lutionary statesmen. 1 They looked forward to its abolition. 
The work, however, was left to each State. Still, in adjust- 
ing the political power, slavery had to be taken into account. 
The earliest division between large slaveholding States and 
States in which slavery was of little account was in October, 
1777, when the rule was adopted for the distribution of the 
quotas to be assessed on the States. All property in slaves 
was exempted. Slavery was not the great difficulty of that 
period. The broadest political sentiment was embodied 
in the State papers coming from the largest slaveholding 
States. Though slavery necessarily had to be considered 
in the political arrangements, it did not seriously disturb 
current politics until after the invention of the cotton-gin 
and the increase of the culture of cotton. 

The plan submitted by the committee did not meet the 
cordial approval of the members of Congress. The ques- 
tions of commerce, the public lands, taxation, the relative 
positions of the large and small States, were difficult to set- 
tle. Then the pressing demands of the war and the uncer- 
tainty as to the future caused delay. Hence sixteen months 
elapsed before Congress could agree upon articles of confed- 
eration. On the tr)tli of November, 1777, they were trans- 
mitted by the president, Henry Laurens, to the several 
legislatures, with the recommendation that their respective 

1 "The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colo- 
nies where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state." — Jefferson's Summary 
of Rights, 1774. There is no more terrible denunciation of slavery than may be 
found in Query xviii. of Jeftcr.sou's "Notes in Virginia," written in 1781. 



ESTABLISHMENT OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 571 

delegates be authorized to ratify them in the Congress of 
the United States.^ 

A circular letter accompanied the articles. It commends 
them as a plan '• for securing the freedom, sovereignty, and , 
indei)endcuce of the United States ; " as the best that could 
be adapted to the circumstances of all; as the only one which 
afforded any tolerable prospect of general ratification ; as 
"essential to their very existence as a free people," and 
without which they might " soon be constrained to bid 
adieu to independence, to liberty and safety." 

The following extract from this letter embodies the 
current feeling relative to the States and the Union : " Per- 
mit us then earnestly to recommend these articles to the 
immediate and dispassionate attention of the legislature of 
the respective States. Let them be candidly reviewed 
under a sense of the difficulty of combining in one general 
system the various sentiments and interests of a continent 
divided into so many sovereign and independent communi- 
ties, under a conviction of the absolute necessity of uniting 
all our councils and all our strength to maintain and defend 
our common liberties ; let them be examined with a liber- 
ality becoming brethren and fellow-citizens, surrounded by 
the same imminent dangers, contending for the same illus- 
trious prize, and deeply interested in being for ever bound 
and connected together by ties the most intimate and indis- 
soluble ; and finally let them be adjusted with the temper 
and magnanimity of wise and patriotic legislators, who, 
while they are concerned with the prosperity of their own 
more immediate circle, are capable of rising superior to 
local attachments when they may be incompatible witli the 
safety and glory of the general confederacy." 

The thirteen legislatures now discussed the articles, 
bringing to this work the results of experience in the past, 

1 Journals of Congress, iii. 404. Thirteen copies of the articles were ordered to 
be made out, signed by the President, and forwarded to the several States; and 
(Nov. 29) they were ordered to be translated into French and sent to Canada. 



t>72 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

and fresh from the debates elicited by the framing of the 
local governments. As a result, nine conferred authority on 
their delegates in Congress to sign the articles ; which were 
accordingly ratified by them in July, 1778. They, however, 
were not to be binding unless ratified by all the legislatures. 
On the lOtli of July, Congress issued an appeal to the 
remaining States " to conclude the glorious compact," say- 
ing that they " never ceased to consider a confederacy as 
the great principle of Union which can alone establish the 
liberty of America and exclude for ever the hopes of its 
enemies." 

This was a period of great political languor. The burden 
of the war was severely felt. The blaze of freedom, it was 
said, that burst forth at the beginning, had gone down ; and 
numbers, in the thirst for riches, lost sight of the original 
object.^ " Where," wrote Henry Laurens, the president of 
Congress to Washington, — " where is virtue, where is patri- 
otism now ; when almost every man has turned his thoughts 
and attention to gain and pleasures, practising every arti- 
fice of Change-alley or Jonathan's ? " ^ 

A train of great events, however, soon revived enthu- 
siasm. The surrender of General Burgoyne and his army 
(Oct. IG, 1777) was an earnest of the fact that Great 
Britain could not conquer America. This was followed by 
the French Treaty and Alliance (Feb. 6, 1778) to estab- 

1 Independent Chronicle, March 12, 1778. 

2 Letter, Nov. 20, 1778. Jonathan's was the name of a coffee-house in Lon- 
don, the great resort of speculators. It Is referred to in British periodicals. In the 
"Gentleman's Magazine" for May, 1767, is the line: "And all the tongues at 
Jonathan's lie quiet." The British called the Americans Jonathan and Jonathans. 
A British ballad on the expedition to Rhode Island in 1778, in "Rivingston's Gaz- 
ette," has, "Jonathan felt bold, sir." The British account of the burning of Fair- 
field in 1779 uses the tenn "Jonathan," all through. "The troops faced about 
and drove Jonathan." '• Rivingston's Gazette" in 1780 says, "Col. Delaney tooii 
a cannon which the Jonathans in vain attempted to defend." I have not met thus 
early the term '• Brother Jonathan." Water-marks on paper used in 1780 by Wash- 
ington has a figure that may represent Jonatlian as a Yankee in an enclosure, hold- 
ing a staff with the figure of a hat on the end, over the British lion, moving out of 
the enclosure. It had on it " Pro Patria." 



ESTABLISHMENT OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 573 

lisli " the liberty, sovereignty, and independence of the 
United States," — a treaty faithfully carried out by Ver- 
gcnncs to this great result. In a few months Congress 
received (Aug. 6, 1778) a minister from France, M. Gerard. 
A description of the imposing ceremonies of the audience 
closes : " Thus has a new and noble sight been exhibited 
in this new world, the representatives of the United States 
of America solemnly giving public audience to a minister 
plenipotentiary from the most powerful Prince in Europe. 
Four years ago, such an event, at so near a day, was not in 
view even of imagination. But it is the Almighty who 
raiseth up. He hath stationed America among the powers 
of the earth, and clothed her in robes of sovereignty." ^ 

These events produced a profound impression throughout 
the civilized world. In Parliament the invectives of the 
opposition against the ministers were terrific. The remedy, 
said the Duke of Richmond, "is instantly to declare Amer- 
ica independent, and withdraw our fleet and armies." ^ 
The ministry, in bills introduced into Parliament, gave up 
the points in dispute, and again sent over commissioners 
of peace. The States were approached separately. One 
overture was made througli Governor Tryon to Jonathan 
Trumbull, Governor of Connecticut, to tempt that State to 
act as a sovereignty. He spurned the offer. After remark-/ 
ing that such proposals were usually made " from the supreme! 
authority of one contending power to the similar authority! 
of the other," he said that " all such proposals were to be 
addressed to the Congress of the United States." ^ 

The drawback on the rising fortunes of the Republic was 
a failure to ratify the Confederation. Lord North used this 
fact in Parliament to justify his hope of effecting disunion, 
and it gave uneasiness to France. The obstacle to a ratifi- 

1 Continental Journal. Aug. 17, 1778. 

2 The " General Advertiser," London, of March 30, 1778, contains the Duke of 
Kichmond's speech, and is very severe on the administration. 

8 Trumbull's Reply to Tryon is dated April 23, 1778. The Bills, " Tryon's Let- * 
ter and the Reply," are in the "Continental Journal," April 30, 1778. 



574 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

cation was the disposal of the western lands, which Dickin- 
son insisted on settling before a declaration of independence. 
There was no ground for controversy about the bounda- 
ries of Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, New 
Hampshire, and Rhode Island ; but the remaining seven 
States, on the letter of their charter or other grounds, 
claimed that their bounds extended to the South Sea or to 
the Mississippi River. The States which preferred no claims 
held that a territory unsettled, and ceded to the crown by 
the treaty of Paris, if wrested from the common enemy by 
the blood and treasure of the thirteen States, ought " to be 
considered as a common property, subject to be parcelled 
out by Congress into free, convenient, and independent 
governments." ^ Maryland, on these grounds, instructed her 
delegates not to consent to the Confederation until an article 
was added securing that domain for the common benefit. 
This drew a strong remonstrance from Virginia, defending 
her claims. The issue at stake was the magnificent domain 
now divided into great States, each an empire in itself. At 
length the legislature of New York (Feb. 19, 1780) em- 
powered its delegates to cede a portion of its territory for 
the common benefit. Congress (September 6) advised a 
liberal surrender by the States of a portion of their terri- 
torial claims, as they could not preserve them entire without 
endangering the stability of the confederacy ; and reminded 
them how important it was to establish the Union, how 
essential to public credit and confidence, to tranquillity 
at home and reputation abroad, " to their very existence 
as a free, sovereign, and independent people." ^ A month 
later (October 10) it resolved that the lands that might be 
ceded should be formed into repul)lican States, and become 
members of the Union, with the same rights of sovereignty, 
freedom, and independence as those possessed by the orig- 
inal States. This assuredly was the action of patriots and 
statesmen. 

1 Journals of Congress, v. 160. ^ Journals of Congress, vi. 123. 



ESTABLISHMENT OP REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 575 

The xVssemblj of Yirginia, " preferring the good of the 
country to every object of smaller importan'ce," now ten- 
dered to Congress for the common benefit the whole of the 
vast territory claimed by her, north-west of the Ohio and 
extending to the Mississippi and the lakes, — a great act, in 
the consummation of which Madison bore a leading part. 
Although it was not completed at once, yet its effect was 
very great in removing obstacles to the establishment of the 
Republic.^ 

The refusal of Maryland to ratify tiie articles was severely 
commented on, dismemberment being suggested as the 
remedy for standing out against the wishes of the majority 
of the Colonies. But at length, impressed among other 
considerations with the idea that " their friends and illus- 
trious ally " believed that the common cause would be 
promoted by their acceding to the Confederation, both 
branches of the Assembly united (Feb. 2, 1781) in an act 
authorizing their delegates to ratify the articles.^ 

These instruments were not uniform. Some were brief; 
some embraced the articles entire ; some, in accepting them, 
called for amendments. But Congress resolutely adhered 
to the articles which they had sent out. 

The form of the final ratification in Congress was im- 
pressive. " Whereas," it runs, " it hath pleased the Great 
Governor of the world to incline the hearts of the legisla- 
tures we respectively represent in Congress to approve of 
and authorize us to ratify the articles, we do solemnly plight 
and engage the faith of our respective constituents that 

1 Rives's Life of Madison, i. 124. 

2 Journals of Congress, vii. 727. The "Independent Chronicle" of July 5, 
1781, says: "Lord North had the impudence to declare, with an air of triumph, to 
the Parliament of Great Britain, that the confederation of America was not accom- 
plished, and that Maryland had refused to accede to it. . . . This Confederation is 
now completed, and by the confession of our enemies themselves it is an immense 
advantage we have gained against them. But the noble motive which actuated 
Maryland in this accession was to content Congress and to satisfj- his most Chris- 
tian ISIajcst}', who appeared earnestly to wish that the union of the States might be 
consummated." 



576 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

thej shall abide by the determination of the United States 
in Congress assembled," on all questions which by the said 
Confederation are committed to them. The signature of 
Maryland on the first day of March, 1781, completed the 
ratification of the Articles of Confederation, the advance 
from the government of committees and congress to an 
American Constitution. 

The title was " Articles of Confederation and Perpetual 
Union ; " the style, "United States of America ; " and the 
object, a firm league of friendship for the common defence 
against attacks on them, Avhether on account of religion or 
of sovereignty. The free inhabitants of each State were to 
be entitled to the privileges and immunities of the free citi- 
zens of every other State. This provision recognized the 
individual as the unit of society, and guaranteed the com- 
bined strength for his protection. 

The Union was represented in a single body, — a congress 
of delegates in which each State was to have one vote. It 
■was to have the sole I'ight of determining on war and peace ; 
of determining the quota of men which each State was to 
raise for the common defence, and the amount of funds 
which each was to supply; of forming treaties and alli- 
ances ; of establishing prize-courts and granting letters of 
marque and reprisal ; of deciding disputes between two or 
more States respecting boundaries or for other causes, with 
the restriction that no State should be deprived of territory 
for the benefit of the United States ; of borrowing money, 
regulating the value of coin, fixing the standard of weights 
and measures, establishing post-offices, and making rules for 
the government of the army and navy. The assent of nine 
States was required for the decision of the more important 
questions. 

Local self-government was fully recognized. The reserved 
powers were thus stated : " Each State retains its sover- 
eignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdic- 
tion, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly 



ESTABLISHMENT OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 577 

delegated to the United States in Congress assembled."^ 
The term State here means a people or community dwelling 
within definite boundaries and in the possession of political 
power. Among the powers reserved were those of regulating 
commerce, and, in general, that of taxation. Among the 
prohibitions were, that the several States should not receive 
or send embassies from or to foreign powers, or treat with 
them, or enter into alliances with one another. Each State 
was bound to abide by the determination of the United 
States in Congress assembled on all questions submitted to 
them by the Confederation. 

An article vested authority in Congress to appoint a com- 
mittee of one from each State to sit during the recess of this 
body, and execute such powers as they might designate. 
The articles might be amended by being agreed to in Con- 
gress, and confirmed by every legislature. 

Congress directed the articles, attested by the President, 
to be sent to the executives of the thirteen States, to the 
Commander-in-Chief, with directions to announce them to the 
army, and to the ministers abroad, to be communicated to 
the several courts near which they resided ; and to be trans- 
lated into French and circulated in Canada. 

By order of Congress the final ratification was announced 
to the public on the 1st of March, 1781, at twelve o'clock, 
under a discharge of cannon on the land and from the 
vessels in the Delaware, conspicuous among which was 
the Ariel Frigate, under Paul Jones, beautifully decorated. 
" The day," it was said, " will be memorable in the annals 
of America to the latest posterity." " Thus has the Union 
begun by necessity been indissolubly cemented. Thus 
America is growing up in war into greatness and conse- 
quence among the nations." ^ 

1 In the articles as found in English publications in 1777, this article reads: 
"Each State reserves to themselves alone the exclusive right of regulating their 
internal government, and of framing laws in all matters that are not included in the 
present confederation, and which cannot any way prejudice the same." 

2 These citations are copied from "Diary of the American Revolution" by 
Frank Moore, ii. 390. 

37 



578 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Congress had voted (June 14, 1777) " that the flag of the 
thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternately red 
and white ; that the union be thirteen stars, white, in a blue 
field, representing a new constellation ; " and it adopted, 
June 20, 1782, for " the great seal," the American eagle 
holding in his dexter talon an olive branch, in his sinister a 
bundle of thirteen arrows, in his beak a scroll inscribed 
" E Pluribus Unum,'' and over his head on an azure field 
thirteen stars, — on the reverse, a pyramid unfinished, with 
an eye, having over it " Annuit cceptis," on the base 
MDCCLXXVI, and underneath " Novus Ordo Seclorum." 

The articles took from Congress powers which it had 
exercised, — the control, for instance, of commerce, — and 
increased the importance of the States. While the latter 
had government, the Congress was virtually but a consulting 
body. The Confederation, as a whole, had no proper common 
executive, no judiciary except admiralty courts, no machin- 
ery to carry its decrees into effect ; and it depended on 
requisitions upon the States for every dollar of its revenue. 
It leaned on the State governments, and had no self-sustain 
ing capacity. 

The establishment of regular government, local and gen- 
eral, produced a salutary effect on the American cause 
abroad. " The eagerness to complete the American code," 
John Adams wrote from Passy, " and the strains of pane 
gyric in which they speak and write of those parts of it 
which have been published in Europe, are very remarkable, 
and seem to indicate a general revolution in the sentiments 
of mankind upon the subject of government." 

The Confederation was scarcely less beneficial at home. 
Under the provision conferring on Congress the authority to 
settle controversies between States, the long dispute between 
Connecticut and Pennsylvania was decided in favor of the 
latter, with the acquiescence of the former. " A singular 
event," writes Roljert R. Livingston. " There are few in- 
stances of independent States submitting their cause to a 



ESTABLISHMENT OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 679 

court of justice. The day will come when all disputes in 
the great republic of Europe will be tried in the same way, 
and America be quoted to exemplify the wisdom of the 
measure." ^ 

In this way the Confederation, notwithstanding its defects, 
was of extended benefit. It met the pressing wants of the 
Union, and thus strengthened it. It conferred a great edu- 
cational service through the experience of its defects ; and it 
carried the nation along until a more efficient system was 
provided. " This service alone entitles that instrument to 
the respectful recollections of the American people, and its 
framers to their gratitude." ^ 

The decline of public spirit, evinced in the neglect to 
comply with the requisitions of Congress, was painfully felt 
in the national ^ finances, before the Articles of Confedera- 
tion took effect and drew attention to the question of reform. 
John Adams was convinced that deep and broad taxation 
was the only remedy.* Hamilton said that the want of 
power in Congress was universally acknowledged^ Wash- 
ington declared that independence, respectability, conse- 
quence in Europe, and greatness as a nation depended on a 
change.^ Congress recommended that the States should lay 
an impost of five per cent on imported goods and on prizes 
(Feb. 2, 1781), to keep the public faith inviolate. Some 
States passed the necessary laws ; others were silent. This 
shameful neglect induced Madison " to urge the necessity of 
arming Congress with coercive powers," and he proposed to 
clothe it with authority to use the force of the United States 
by sea and land to compel the delinquent States to fulfil their 
engagements.''' Soon after the ratification of the Articles, 

1 Sparks's Diplomatic Corre:«pondence, x. 21. 

2 Marshall's Washington, iv. 416. 

3 Congress habitually used the word national; as, "national debt" (Journals, 
7. 238), " national faith " (ibid. 266). 

■* Letter, 1778. Diplomatic Correspondence, iv 263. 
6 Letter, Sept 3, 1780. 

6 Letter, Feb 28, 1781. 

7 Letter and Report, April 16, 1781. Madison Papers, i. 86. 



680 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Robert Morris, in a clear and strong circular, uttered a 
warning against the policy of showing " a distrust of the 
States in the sovereign representation of America," and 
Hinged the Whigs to give to the union of sentiment, daily 
increasing, " a proper political form and consistency." ^ 
Perhaps not one of the prominent public men regarded 
the Articles as more tlian a step toward a better system. 

Great events were at hand. The remarkable campaign 
of General Greene in the Southern States was consummated 
by the victory at Eutaw on the 8th of September, 1781. The 
brilliant operations of Washington and Rochambeau cul- 
minated at Yorlvtown, on the nineteenth day of October, in 
the surrender of Lord Cornwallis and his army to the com- 
bined forces of France and the United States. The journals 
are crowded with the details of this decisive result. The 
spectacle is said to have been inspiring when " the flags of 
the two nations were borne in triumph by their officers." 
The enthusiasm was intense and general. Days were set 
apart for demonstrations of the general joy. Congress 
went in procession to church to give thanks to Almighty 
God for the victory. 

Hostilities were kept up in various quarters, but the main 
armies remained inactive, and the war was virtually over. 
At length, in March, 1783, the newspapers spread the great 
and joyful intelligence that terms of peace had been agreed 
upon. Congress soon (April 11) by proclamation an- 
nounced that provisional articles were signed on the 30th 
of November, and declared a cessation of arms. Washing- 
ton, in an admirable general order, named the nineteenth 
day of April — completing the eighth year of the war — as 
the time to read to the army this proclamation, which he 
said, " like another morning star, promised the approach of 
a brighter day than hath hitherto illumed the western hemi- 
sphere." There was now an outburst of joy, gratitude, and 

1 Tlie circular was addressed to the Governors. It is dated July 27, 1782. Dip- 
lomatic Correspondence, xi. -108-414. 



ESTABLISHMENT OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 581 

praise, such as is seldom seen in the annals of a people. 
Certain provisions relative to the refugees were criticised 
by those who kept up a war on the Tories after the war with 
Great Britain was ended ; but " fault-finders were borne 
down by the general torrent of applause," ^ and hearty com- 
mendation was awarded to the negotiators, Franklin, John 
Adams, and Jay. 

Washington was the idol of the people. The air was 
vocal with his praise. " Your services," said the President 
of Congress to him in an audience, ^ " have been essential in 
acquiring and establishing the freedom and independence 
of your country. They deserve the grateful acknowledg- 
ments of a free and independent nation. . . . Hostilities 
have ceased, but your country still needs your services." 
Washington expressed himself as amply rewarded by the af- 
fection of his fellow-citizens ; and said, " I cannot hesitate to 
express my best endeavors towards the establishment of the 
national security in whatever manner the sovereign power 
may think proper to direct." He soon issued an elaborate 
farewell address to the army. He appealed to every offi- 
cer and every soldier to add to the immense service they 
had rendered by using every endeavor to " support the 
Federal Government, and enlarge the powers of the Union, 
on which depended the very existence of the nation." The 
eulogistic notices of this address warrant the remark that it 
produced a profound impression on the public mind. 

Three months afterward occurred the interesting scene 
in Congress, at Annapolis, when, in the presence of a bril- 
liant audience, Washington laid down his authority. It is 
related that the members " were seated and covered as 
representatives of the sovereignty of the Union." Wash- 
ington, standing, read a brief speech, in which he said that 
he was " happy in the confirmation of independence and 
sovereignty, and pleased with the opportunity afforded the 
United States of becoming a respectable nation." He 

i Robert Morris's letter, Sept. 20, 1783. 2 August 26, 1783. 



582 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

then advanced to the chair, and gave his address and his 
commission to the President. He, in a reply penned by 
Jefferson, said that " Congress accepted with emotions too 
affecting for utterance the solemn resignation of authority ; 
assured him that he had the blessings of his fellow-citizens ; 
expressed the conviction that the glory of his virtues would 
continue to animate remotest ages ; and joined him in 
beseeching Almighty God to dispose the hearts and minds 
of the citizens to improve the opportunity afforded them of 
becoming a happy and respectable nation." ^ The citizen- 
soldiers, following their beloved and illustrious commander, 
impressed an American lesson on mankind, as, with unsat- 
isfied claims and impaired constitutions, they quietly returned 
to their former occupations. 

On the 1-lth of January, 1784, Congress announced by 
proclamation that the treaty of peace had been confirmed, 
and enjoined on " all good citizens of the United States " to 
carry it into effect by " reverencing those stipulations entered 
into on their behalf, under the authority of that federal 
bond by which their existence as an independent people is 
bound up together, and is known and acknowledged by the 
nations of the world." 

" The times that tried men's souls are over," wrote the 
author of " Common Sense," " and the greatest and complet- 
est revolution the world ever knew is gloriously and happily 
accomplished. . . . That which . . renders easy all inferior 
concerns is the union of the States. . . I ever feel myself 
hurt when I hear the Union, that great palladium of our 
liberty and safety, the least irreverently spoken of It is 
the most sacred thing in the Constitution of America, and 

1 On this day, Dec. 23, 1783, on motion of Mr. Williamson, seconded by Mr. 
Jefferson, Congress ordered that letters be addressed to the executives of Xew 
Hampshire, Connecticut, New Yorlc. New Jersey, South Carolina, and Georgia, 
informing them that the honor of the United States required the attendance of their 
delegates; that during that session there had not been more than seven States 
represented, and the most of those by only two delegates; and that "matters of 
great national concern" required the utmost despatch, and the assent of nine States. 
Journals, ix. 12. 



ESTABLISHMENT OP EEPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 683 

that which every man should be the most proud and tender 
of. Our citizenship in the United States is our national 
character. Our citizenship in any particular State is only 
our local distinction. By the latter we are known at home ; 
by the former to the world. Our great title is Americans ; 
our inferior one varies with the place." ^ This citation will 
show the sentiment expressed in private and official letters, 
— from those of Washington down, — in the toasts at public 
festivals, by the press and at public meetings. 

The times of trial were by no means over. To construct 
the republican government, represented by the press as easy ,2 
proved the hardest of work. On the return of peace the 
need of it was more painfully felt than ever. The great 
minister of finance, Robert Morris, engaged in Herculean 
labors, wrote : " The necessity of strengthening our con- 
federacy, providing for our debts, and forming some federal 
constitution, begins to be most seriously felt. But, unfor- 
tunately for America, the narrow and illiberal prejudices 
of some have taken such deep root, that it must be difficult, 
and may prove impracticable, to remove them." 

Great Britain, baffled on the field of arms, kept up an 
insidious war on the Union. The king, from the throne, 
expressed a desire that America might be free from the 
calamities which had proved in the mother country how 
essential monarchy was to the enjoyment of constitutional 
liberty. The cabinet required, before treating on commerce, 
that each State should send separate ambassadors.^ An or- 
der in council excluded from the West Indies American ves- 
sels and American products, except in British ships. The 
free trade for the United States was met by restriction 
and monopoly. Congress, in endeavors to form commercial 
treaties, declared that in every case under them the United 
States should be considered " as one nation upon the prin- 

1 The Last Crisis, No XIIL ; Boston Evening Post, May 10, 1783. 

2 See p. 48L 

3 .John Adams (Works, viii. 243) commented severely on the idea of thirteen 
plenipotentiaries. 



584 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

cipies of the federal constitution." ^ Lord Slieffield urged 
that the American States were not to be feared as a nation.^ 
The acts of local legislatures, in retaliation, were failures. 
All branches of industry — the rice and tobacco of the 
South, as well as the trade and commerce of the North — 
suffered from this foreign policy. In the " war of imposts," 
as Washington termed it, the Confederation proved entirely 
inadequate to the common defence. American agriculture, 
commerce, and manufactures demanded the protection of an 
efficient government. 

Intelligent minds in every quarter lamented the evils 
of the existing system ; but Hamilton and Madison identi- 
fied themselves so thoroughly with the measures adopted to 
effect a reform, as to stand out prominent in this work. 

Alexander Hamilton was born at Nevis, in the West 
Indies. At the age of fifteen he was sent to New York to 
obtain an education, and became a student in Columbia Col- 
lege. About two years afterward, in the heat and glow of 
the fraternal feeling evoked by the Port Act, he electrified a 
public meeting held in the Fields in New York in a speech 
indicative of remarkable intellectual gifts ; and followed 
this up by an able pamphlet on the American cause. At 
seventeen Hamilton was in the army as captain of an artil- 
lery company ; at twenty he was a member of Washington's 
military family ; and to the proud day of Yorktown was as 
chivalrous, generous, and gallant a soldier as ever drew 
his sword for his country. He became a member of the 
New- York Assembly, and then of Congress. He wrote 
elaborately on political affairs, exposing the defects of the 
Confederation, and in legislative action aimed to reform 
them. His productions evince great maturity of thought, 
rare logical power, and the intuitive grasp that marks the 
great intellect. Tliey assign him to the school that distrusts 
the capacity of the people, seeks paternal government, and 

1 The Instructions to the Ministers Plenipotentiary abroad are in Pitkin's His- 
tory, ii. 534. 2 Ibid., 189. 



ESTABLISHMENT OP REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 585 

relies more on physical force than on consent. His plan of 
government contained life-tenures for high executive and 
legislative offices, tended towards monarchy, and was not 
adapted to the genius of his countrymen. 

James Madison was born in Orange, Va., and educated 
at Princeton, N.J. He began public life as a member of 
the great convention that formed the first constitution of 
that State, and he afterward became a member of Con- 
gress. At thirty-four, he felt himself called to the study 
of politics, with the view of laboring to establish an ade- 
quate government for his country. He left Congress when 
the war closed, and served for three years in the Virginia 
Assembly, when he was again returned to Congress. His 
ripe culture and remarkable power in debate — having tlie 
rare gift of the eloquence that persuades — rendered him 
able to cope in argument with the ablest of his contem- 
poraries. His labors were uninterrupted in the civil line, 
and present the record of a great and wise statesman. 
They class him as a disciple of the republican school. 

It is not, however, history to select one or two great men, 
and to ascribe the Union to their influence, and the Consti- 
tution to their insight. It is only necessary to state things 
as they occurred to see that no Lycurgus had been born to 
give the law to the United States. Franklin, with his great 
conception of a self-sustaining government, held to a single 
legislative body ; Richard Henry Lee was against endowing 
the Union with the vital function of regulating commerce ; 
Hamilton would have had a convention act as the sovereignty 
in creating a new sovereignty ; Madison proposed to give 
Congress the power of a negative on State laws. 

Madison, however, was the earliest to give an outline of a 
government for the Union designed to operate on individuals, 
and to be established by the people of the States in their 
sovereign character.^ This was sent to Jefferson, then in 
France, who had written profoundly on government in his 

1 Madison Pa[:ers, ii. 714. 



586 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

" Notes on Virginia." He now wrote : " The interests of 
the States ought to be made joint in every possible instance, 
in order to cultivate the idea of our being one nation, and to 
multiply the instances in which the people should look up to 
Congress as its head." ^ 

Washington continued to manifest greatness of mind in 
entering on the work of peace. He did not attempt to con- 
struct a political system. He devoted himself to developing 
the resources of his native State. He treated with great abil- 
ity the questions connected with the commerce and political 
wants of the one country always in his mind and near his 
heart ; and contemporary records will be searched in vain 
for clearer expositions of existing evils, and of the necessity 
of removing them, than his writings afford. His unrivalled 
judgment frowned down vagaries. He comprised the sub- 
stance of what the Union required in this strong statement : 
" I do not conceive we can long exist as a nation without 
having lodged somewhere a power which will pervade the 
whole Union in as energetic a manner as the authority of 
the State governments extends over the several States." ^ 

The method of obtaining an American Constitution through 
a representative convention was historical, and was sug- 
gested when the idea was to form a union that should be 
consistent with allegiance to the crown. It was renewed 
in the speculations on independence, as in " Common Sense," 
in 1776. When the aim was to reform the Confederation, a 
convention was suggested by Hamilton in 1780 ; by Pelatiah 
Webster in 1781 ; by the New- York Legislature in 1782 ; 
was named in Congress by Hamilton in 1783 ; was proposed 
by Richard Henry Lee in a letter in 1784 ; and was recom- 
mended by Governor Bowdoin in a speech to the Massachu- 
setts Legislature in 1785. No action, however, grew out of 
these suggestions. In 178G, the Assembly of Virginia, 

1 Memoirs of Jefferson, i. 235; letter dated June 17, 1785. See also letter 
dated Feb. 8, 1786. 

2 Letter dated Aug. 1, 1786. Sparks's Writings of Washington, ix. 187. 



ESTABLISHMENT OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 587 

under the lead of Madison, appointed commissioners to meet 
in convention and consider the question of commerce, with 
the view of altering the Articles of Confederation ; and it 
was made the duty of this committee to invite all the States 
to concur in the measure. 

The convention was summoned to meet at Annapolis, 
and delegates from five legislatures assembled, on the 
eleventh day of September, 1786. Hamilton was present 
from New York, Madison from Virginia, and Dickinson 
from Pennsylvania. The commissions of four legisla- 
tures authorized their delegates to consider what ought to 
be done to benefit the commerce of the United States. The 
commission of the New-Jersey delegates embraced " other 
important matters." The representation was so partial, 
that this body refrained from entering upon the business of 
their mission. In a brief report, drawn up by Hamilton, 
addressed to their constituents, and signed by John Dick- 
inson, the chairman, they recommended the powers granted 
by New Jersey as an improvement of the original plan, and 
unanimously urged the five States to use their endeavors 
to procure the appointment of commissioners from all 
the States, to meet in Philadelphia, on the second Mon- 
day in May next, to devise such measures as might appear 
necessary to render the Constitution of the Federal Govern- 
ment adequate to the exigencies of the Union. ^ 

In the mean time, national affairs grew worse. To the 
chronic neglect to comply with the requisitions of Congress, 
the New Jersey Legislature added positive refusal by an act 
of legislation. The legislatures of States having ports for 
foreign commerce, taxed the people of other States trading 
through them ; others taxed imports from sister States ; in 
olher instances the navigation-laws treated the people of 

1 This address to the legislatures of Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New 
York, is in the American Museum for April, 1787. It states that commissioners were 
appointed by New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and North Car^ lina, 
who did not attend ; and that no notice of appointments were received from Con- 
necticut, Maryland, South Carolina, or Georgia 



588 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

other States as aliens. The authority of Congress was dis- 
regarded by violating not only the Treaty of Paris, but 
treaties with France and Holland.^ Congress, in a circular 
letter (April, 1787) addressed to the Governors, to be laid 
before the legislatures, say that " the national Constitution 
having committed to them the management of the national 
concerns with foreign states and powers, it was their duty to 
take care that all the rights which they ought to enjoy 
within their jurisdiction, by the laws of nations and the faith 
of treaties, remain inviolate ; " and "■ that when a treaty was 
constitutionally made, it immediately became binding on 
the whole nation and superadded to the laws of the land, 
without the intervention of a fiat of State legislatures." ^ Ac- 
cording to American law, the sovereignty had not entrusted 
to the State legislatures, the right of exercising national 
functions, and their high-handed acts were usurpations of 
power. These bodies were transforming the Union into 
the low condition in which it was before the organization 
of committees of correspondence.^ 

This was the period of " Shays's Rebellion " in Massachu- 
setts, in which the spirit and example of disobedience to law, 
exhibited for years by the local legislatures, broke out among 
a people. It created a profound impression. At home it 
seemed a herald of approaching anarchy ; abroad it exalted 
the hopes of monarchists, and was regarded as the knell of 
republicanism. The treason was easily subdued by a military 
force, under General Lincoln, called out by Governor Bow 
doin. It was the first rising in arms against a government 
established by the people in this State, and thus far has 



1 The " Introduction " in Madifon Papers, ii. 712. The letter of Alexandei 
Hamilton to James Duane (Worlds of Hamilton, i. 150), dated Sept. 3, 1780, con- 
tains a masterly presentation of the defects of the Confederacy. Its recommemla- 
tions are criticised in Rives's Life of jNIadison, i. 306. " The Vices of the Political 
System of the United States," in the Writings of Madison, i 320, contain an able 
summary of the evil practices of the States. 

2 This circular was signed by A. St. Clair, President. American Museum, i. 349. 
« See pages 256-259. 



ESTABLISHMENT OF EEPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 589 

proved the last. It had the effect to ripen the public mind 
for a general government. 

A month after this insurrection began, the Virginia Legis- 
lature, under the lead of Madison, provided (Nov. 9, 1786) 
for the choice of commissioners to attend a convention at 
Philadelphia, " to concur in such further suggestions and pro- 
visions " in the Federal Government, " as might be neces- 
sary to secure the great objects for which that government 
■was establislied, and to render the United States as happy 
in peace as they have been glorious in war." ^ Washington 
was placed at the head of the delegates. The legislatures 
of Pennsylvania and Delaware, saying, among other things, 
that they desired to co-operate with Virginia, soon chose com- 
missioners, as did those of New Jersey and North Caro- 
lina. Congress, viewing a convention as the most probable 
means of " establishing in those States a firm national 
government," recommended (Feb. 21, 1787) the legisla- 
tures to appoint delegates to meet in convention at Philadel- 
phia " for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles 
of Confederation," and report to Congress and the several 
State legislatures." ^ Afterward the legislatures of seven 
other States chose delegates ; all electing but Rhode 
Island. 

The delegates elect were summoned to meet in Philadel- 
phia on the fourteenth day of May, in Independence Hall ; 
but, a majority of the States not being then represented, 
those present adjourned from day to day until the twenty- 
fifth. They then organized into a convention, and elected 
George Wasliingion as President. Sixty-five delegates had 
been chosen ; ten, however, did not take their seats. The 
credentials, generally, are like those of Virginia, which name, 
as the object, to devise " such further provisions as may be 
necessary to render the Federal Constitution adequate to 
the exigencies of the Union." 

1 Rives's Life of Madjson, ii. 134. 

2 Journals of Congress, xii. 17. 



690 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

The members were identified with the heroic and wise 
counsels of the Revolution. The venerable Franklin was in 
the Albany convention, and now, at eighty-one, was the 
President of Pennsylvania. Johnson of Connecticut, Rut- 
ledge of South Carolina, and Dickinson, were in the Stamp 
Act Congress. Seven of the delegates were in the Congress 
of 1774. Eight of them signed the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, one of whom, James Wilson, was next to Madison 
in ability, culture, and preparation for the work before them. 
Eighteen Avere then members of Congress, and only twelve 
had not been members of this body. Among the great 
men who were elected, but declined, were Richard Caswell 
and Patrick Henry. The delegates most distinguished by 
Revolutionary service were Langdon, Gerry, Sherman, Liv- 
ingston, Read, Mifflin, Morris, Clymer, Wilson, Mason, 
Wythe, Rutledge, Randolph, the two Pinckneys, Madison, 
Hamilton, Dickinson, Franklin, and Washington. Of those 
who were destined to be widely known were Rufus King, 
Caleb Strong, Nathaniel Gorham, Oliver Ellsworth, Jared 
Ingersoll, and James McHenry. This roll of names marks 
the rank of this assembly as to intellect, character, experi- 
ence, and patriotism. 

The Convention was occupied for nearly four months 
(May 25 to Sept. 17) in its great labor. Its sessions were 
held with closed doors; secrecy was enjoined, — no mem- 
ber being even allowed to copy from its journal ; and little 
transpired of its proceedings until its adjournment. Its 
journal was intrusted to the keeping of Washington, who 
deposited it in the State Department. It was printed by 
direction of Congress in 1818. Robert Yates, one of the 
members from New York, made short notes of the debates 
in the earlier sessions, which were printed in 1821 ; and 
Madison took short-hand notes of each day's doings, which 
he wrote out daily. They were printed in 1840. Luther 
Martin, in a remarkable letter addressed to the legislature 
of Maryland, gave important information concerning the 



ESTABLISHMENT OP REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 591 

Convention. These and other authentic materials ^ furnish 
nearly a complete view of the process by which the Consti- 
tution for the United States was matured. 

The Virginia delegation, through Edmund Randolph, then 
th e Go vernor^ submitted fifteen resolutions concerning the 
establishment^of a national government, to consist of a legis- 
lature oftwo branches, an executiveliiicrarjudiciary, Charles 
Pinckney^ also presented a draft of a Federal Government. 
These propositions were referred to the committee of the 
whole. They were debated from day to day until the 13th 
of June, when nineteen resolutions were reported to the 
House. Before they were acted on, Mr. Patterson, of New 
Jersey (June 15), submitted eleven resolutions, proposing 
to revive the Articles of Confederation, " so as to render 
the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of gov- 
ernment and the preservation of the Union." These reso- 
lutions, together with the nineteen resolutions previously 
reported, were referred to the committee of the whole. In 
the discussion, after John Dickinson had spoken on the 
Articles of Confederation, Hamilton, in the course of a 
speech, read a paper containing his ideas of a Plan of Gov- 
ernment, with a legislature of two branches, — the assembly 
to consist of persons who should serve for three years, and 
the senate as well as the governor, the executive head, 
to serve during good behavior. He proposed that the gen- 
eral government should appoint the governor of each State, 
who should have a negative on the laws to be passed by the 
legislature. This plan was not acted on. On the 19th of 
June, the committee of the whole reported to the House 
that they did not assent to the resolutions offered by the 
Hon. Mr. Patterson, but submitted again the nineteen reso- 
lutions before reported. The first was : " That it is the 
opinion of this committee that a National Government ought 

1 Elliott's Debates, ed. 1866, i. 121-123, contains an account (f these materials. 
This work is an invaluable repository of the papers connected with the formation of 
the Constitution. 



592 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

to be established, consisting of a supreme legislation, judi- 
ciary and executive." 

This determination to frame a new government brought 
face to face in the Convention the antagonisms of American 
society ; the errors of opinion and rooted prejudices ; the 
local interests, jealousies, and ambitions of the people of the 
several States. The slavery question rose to fearful emi- 
nence. It was connected with the question of representa- 
tion, or the mode in which the political power should be 
distributed. Madison, on the 30th of June, in an elaborate 
speech, delineated the great division of interests in the 
United States as not between the large and the small States, 
but as arising from their having or not having slaves. " It 
lay," he said, " between the Northern and Southern ; " and 
he went on to show how certain arrangements "would 
destroy the equilibrium of interests between the two sec- 
tions." In this he probed the cause of the passion that 
mingled in the debates. The storm was fearful. " I be- 
lieve," Luther Martin said, '• near a fortnight, perhaps more, 
was spent in the discussion of this business, during which 
we were on the verge of dissolution, scarce held together by 
the strength of a hair ; " and this is confirmed by a letter 
from Washington,^ who said that he almost despaired of 
seeing a favorable issue to the proceedings, and therefore 
repented of having had any agency in the business. 

During this period Franklin made his well-known impres- 
sive speech, on introducing a motion, that prayers be said in 
tlie Convention. In another characteristic speech, on the 
wide diversity of opinion, he said that when a broad table is 
to be made, and the edges of planks do not fit, the artist takes 
a little from both and makes a good joint. In like manner, 
here, both sides must part with some of their demands, 
in order that they may join in some accommodating prop- 
osition. The work of healing commenced when the com- 

1 The letter was addressed July 10, 1787, to Hamilton. He left the Convention 
on the 29th of June, and did not return until the 13th of August. 



ESTABLISHMENT OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 593 

promise was agreed to, fixing; the basis of representation 
by adding to the whole number of free persons, including 
those bound to serve for a term of years, excluding 
Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons, and giv- 
ing to each State one representative for every forty thousand 
inhabitants, and to each State an equal vote in the Senate. 

After the adjustment of representation, there remained 
the difficulty of discriminating between the two splieres of 
power, local and general. The proposal of Hamilton to 
endow a central government with power to appoint tlic local 
governors met with little, if any, favor. The advocates of 
the old Articles made it their chief point to preserve to the 
States their importance ; and Madison, the foremost advo- 
cate of the Virginia plan, said that " he would preserve the 
State rights as carefully as the trial by jury." The clear 
and profound George Mason said that, " notwithstanding 
his solicitude to establish a national government, he never 
would agree to abolish the State governments, or render 
them absolutely insignificant. They were as necessary as 
the general government, and he would be equally careful 
to preserve them. He was aware of the difficulty of draw- 
ing the line between them, but hoped it was not insur- 
mountable." He also said he was sure " that, though the 
mind of the people might be unsettled on some points, yet 
it was settled in attachment to republican government." 
Local self-government, union, and republicanism were as 
laws inscribed on the tablets of the American heart ; and it 
was the office of the able men of the Convention to devise 
for their wants the letter of a written constitution. 

In these discussions the Convention had passed on the 
nineteen resolutions. On the 23d of July it was determined 
that its proceedings " for the establishment of a national 
government," excepting the executive, should be referred to a 
committee, for the purpose of reporting a draft of a consti- 
tution conformably to them ; and the next day, when five 
members were appointed as this committee, the propositions 



594 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

submitted by Pinckney and Patterson were also referred to it. 
On the 6th of August tlie committee reported ; when another 
month of debate followed, during which the clauses relative 
to the slave-trade and the rendition of slaves were agreed 
to, — on which hung miglity issues. Tliey are of the past 
now. They were the price that was paid for republican 
government, an instrument of vast good in the present and 
for the future. On the 8th of September a committee of five 
was appointed " to revise the style of and arrange the articles 
agreed to by the House." This work was intrusted to Gov- 
ernor Morris, and to him belongs the credit of the simple 
style and clear arrangement of the Constitution. The com- 
mittee reported on the twelfth, when the printing of the Con- 
stitution was ordered. Three days were occupied in revising 
it, when it was ordered to be engrossed. It was then read, 
when Franklin rose with a speech in his hand, which was 
read by James Wilson. 

" I confess," it begins, " that there are several parts of 
this Constitution which I do not at present approve ; but I 
am not sure I shall never approve them. For, having lived 
long, I liave experienced many instances, by being obliged 
by better information, or fuller consideration, to change 
opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought 
right, but found to be otherwise. It is, therefore, that the 
older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment 
and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. . . . 

" In these sentiments, sir, I agree to that Constitution, 
with all its faults, if they are such, because I think a general 
government necessary for us ; and there is no form of gov- 
ernment but what may be a blessing to the people if well 
administered ; and believe, further, that this is likely to be 
well administered for a course of years, and can only end in 
despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the 
people shall be so corrupted as to need despotic government, 
being incapable of any other." 

Franklin concluded by moving a form, in which the Con- 



ESTABLISHMENT OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT 595 

stitution slioiild be signed by the members. Mr. Gorham, of 
Massachusetts, now said that, if it was not too late, he could 
wish, for the purpose of lessening objections, that the number 
of representatives, which had produced so much discussion, 
might be fixed at one for every thirty thousand instead 
of one for forty thousand. Washington's suggestions on 
government, from the period of his command of the army to 
his election as President, are a monument of his judgment, 
sagacity, and wisdom. He watched with painful solicitude 
the progress of tlie Convention ; but he did not once enter 
into the discussions. When he rose to put the question on 
the motion of Mr. Gorham, he said : — 

" That although liis situation had hitherto restrained him 
from offering his sentiments on questions depending in the 
House, and, it might be thought, ouglit now to impose silence 
on him, yet he could not forbear expressing his wish that 
the alteration proposed might take place. It was much to 
be desired that the objections to the plan recommended 
might be made as few as possible. The smallness of the 
proportion of representatives had been considered, by many 
members of the Convention, an insufficient security for the 
rights and interests of the people. He acknowledged that 
it had always appeared to himself among the exceptionable 
parts of tlie plan ; and, late as the present moment was for 
admitting amendments, he thought this of so much conse- 
quence that it would give him much satisfaction to see it 
adopted." 

This impressive appeal was followed by a unanimous vote 
in favor of the motion. There "was then a vote on the ques- 
tion whether the Constitution should be agreed to as en- 
grossed in order to be signed, and all the States answered ay. 
There was then a debate on signing. Hamilton now entered 
upon the course that reflects high honor on him as a patriot. 
He was anxious that every member should sign, saying: 
" No man's ideas were more remote from the plan than his 
own were known to be ; but is it possible to deliberate be- 



59(3 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

tween anarchy and convulsion on one side, and the chance 
of good to be expected from the plan on the other ? " 

All the members signed the Constitution, excepting Ed- 
mund Randolph and George Mason, of Virginia, and Elbridge 
Gerry, of Massachusetts. Whilst the last members were 
signing, Franklin, the Nestor of the Assembly, looking 
towards the President's chair, at the back of which a rising 
sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members 
near him, that painters had found it difficult to distinguish 
in their art a rising from a setting sun. " I have," said he, 
" often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicis- 
situde of ray hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that 
behind the President, without being able to tell whether it 
was rising or setting ; but now, at length, I have the happi- 
ness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun." 
The instrument was attested in the form submitted by him : 
" Done in Convention, by the unanimous consent of the 
States present, the 17th day of September, in the year of 
our Lord, 1787, and of the Independence of the United 
States of America, the twelfth." 

The debates evince clearly enough that members had their 
share of the infirmities of human nature. " It is a miracle," 
said Hamilton, " that we are here exercising our tranquil and 
free deliberations." When the difficulties that met them at 
every turn are considered, it seems a wonder that they were 
able to overcome them. Madison was not absent a single 
day from the session, and observed closely the whole course 
of affairs. He writes, " that there never was an assembly 
of men, charged with a great and arduous trust, who were 
more pure in their motives or more anxiously devoted to the 
objects submitted to them." 

It was moved in the Convention by Hamilton, and seconded 
by Gerry, that the Constitution should be transmitted to " the 
United States in Congress assembled," and, if it should be 
agreed 1:o by them, that it should be communicated to the 
legislatures of the several States. The motion was rejected. 



ESTABLISHMENT OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 597 

The important decision was reached that it should be trans- 
mitted through Congress and the local legislatures to the 
people, or to the sovereignty in each State ; and that when 
the conventions of nine States should have advised Con- 
gress that the people had ratified the Constitution, Congress 
should appoint the time and place for commencing proceed- 
ings under it. 

Accompanying the transmission of the Constitution to 
Congress, was a letter signed by the President in the name 
of the Convention. This brief and admirable paper em- 
braces a statement of the need of a general government for 
the Union, and of the difficulties experienced in drawing the 
line between the powers reserved and the powers surren- 
dered ; and presents the Constitution as the result of a spirit 
of amity. " In all our deliberations, we kept steadily in 
view that which appears the greatest interest of every true 
American, — the consolidation of our Union, in which is 
involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national 
existence." 

When the Constitution and accompanying papers were 
before Congress, some urged that as the object expressed in 
the call, that of revising the Articles of Confederation, had 
not been adhered to by the Convention, but a new system 
had been organized, it would be unbecoming to transmit it 
to the legislatures ; also that, if transmitted, Congress ought 
to add certain amendments. But these propositions were met 
so efficiently by Madison, — who immediately resumed his 
seat, — that, on the 28th of September, Congress unani- 
mously ordered the papers to " be submitted to a convention 
of delegates, chosen in each State by the people thereof, in 
conformity to the resolves of the Convention." This was a 
great point gained, as it presented to the people the single 
queslion of the acceptance or rejection of the Constitution. 

Meanwhile, this grand American production circulated 
immediately (September 19) through the newspapers. It 
seemed to meet with general favor, and even to excite en- 



598 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

thusiasra. It found a certain preparation of the public mind 
ready to respond to its main features, — an ideal which it 
met and satisfied. The secrecy enjoined by the Convention 
had been well kept. Still, during its long session, and the 
consequent public anxiety, certain facts had been magnified 
into unpleasant rumors. The fact that propositions had 
been brought forward to interfere with the local govern- 
ments grew into the rumor that they were to be abolished ; 
the fact that there were a few adherents of a principle tend- 
ing to monarchy grew into the rumor that one was to be 
established, with the Bishop of Osnaburgh at its head. The 
Constitution put these rumors to silence. It purported to 
form a more perfect Union, whicli was in the puljlic mind 
a Palladium ; to recognize the States and guarantee to them 
republican government, which met and satisfied an old con- 
viction ; to be a Constitution, which was a result prophesied 
twenty years before,^ and held up as a necessity ever since ; 
and to provide for a government, a public authority, clothed 
with power supreme in its sphere, any thing that any State 
might do to the contrary ; which was in accordance with the 
pledges proffered before the first Congress convened, and sol- 
emnly agreed to in the Articles. An instrument that would 
enable the people to do this was an advance indeed. It 
would put an end to the flagrant assumptions of national 
functions by local legislatures, in disregarding treaties, vio- 
lating public faith, and thus making the American name a 
by-word. The Constitution was instinctively and joyfully 
welcomed by farmers, mechanics, and merchants. 

Soon, however, the newspapers teemed with the views of 
men eminent for ability, honesty, and patriotism, against 
its adoption ; and they won adherents. Hence the country 
became divided into two great parties : one called the 
Federalists, composed of those who were in favor of the 
ratification of the Constitution ; the other termed anti-Fed- 
eralists, or those opposed to the ratification, who could 

1 Sec page 244. 



ESTABLISHMENT OP REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 599 

boast among their leaders the great names of George CHn- 
ton and Patrick Henry. The conflict of opinions was carried 
on in })ublic meetings, through the press, and in the repre- 
sentative assemblies, and all these in thought and action 
were unfettered. This constituted another great period in 
American history. It has been thoroughly explored and 
ably narrated. In advocating the adoption of the Constitu- 
tion, James Wilson made a noble record in the Pennsylva- 
nia Convention and the popular forum. Hamilton and 
Madison shone in the State conventions and in the press. 
Their greatest legacy was their share in the " Eighty-five 
Essays," which appeared in a New-York newspaper, under 
the signature of " Publius." In this, they were associated 
with Jay, who, however, on account of illness, contributed 
only six of the number. These " Essays " were collected in 
the well-known volume entitled " The Federalist," which is 
a classic in American political literature. 

Tlie local legislatures followed the example of Congress. 
Without expressing any opinion on the Constitution, they 
called upon the people to choose delegates in the manner in 
which they chose representatives, to meet in convention and 
take it into consideration, and report the result to the Con- 
gress of the United States. These conventions accordingly 
were held, and the Constitution and accompanying papers 
were laid before them. After long debates, they voted to 
ratify the Constitution. In doing this, the members fol- 
lowed the general convention in signing instruments varying 
in form, — some of them embracing recommendations of 
amendments. The terms used in tlie main act were similar. 
Thus : " We, the delegates of the people of Virginia, . . . 
assent to and ratify the Constitution ... in behalf of the 
people." All use the term " ratify," and some add " assent." 
The Massachusetts form acknowledges the goodness of the 
Supreme Ruler in affording the people of the United States 
the opportunity of entering into a solemn compact with one 
another by assenting to a new Constitution. 



600 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

This was action, not by the local governments, but by the 
people, as the sovereign power. As has been related,^ the peo- 
ple had established constitutions to meet their local wants ; 
and now this same sovereign power, expressing its will, in 
distinct communities, through legal channels, ordained a con- 
stitution for the purposes stated in its preamble : " We, the 
People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect 
Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide 
for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and 
secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our pos- 
terity, do ordain and establisli this Constitution for the 
United States of America." ^ The effect of this concurrent 
action was to constitute the people legally what they had 
long been in sentiment, — one people, for certain purposes ; 
and to provide a government for the political unit composed 
of the States in Union, or the United States, in order to meet 
their wants as one people and one nation. And this gov- 
ernment was designed to operate, like the State govern- 
ments, immediately and individually on the people, by the 
same coercive forms and means.^ These creative acts, 
local and general, were not divisions of the sovereignty, 
but the exercise of sovereign power limiting the people 
themselves, as well as their agents, in the discharge of polit- 
ical duties. Their results, the constitutions, were not ends, 
but means of preserving the public life, and promoting the 
public good, and, as such, were sacredly obligatory on all.^ 
But they were valuable only as they contributed to this 
object ; and, when they proved inadequate to embody the 
living spirit, the people who created them could alter them. 
The sovereignty, though quiescent, remained intact, ready 

1 See pp. 564 5G8. 

2 This citation is from the copy in Hickey's "Constitution of the United States 
of America." 

3 Madison's Works, iv. 320. 

* " The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to 
alter their constitutions of government. But the constitution which at any time 
exists, until changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly 
obligatory on all." — Washington's Farewell Address. 



ESTABLISHMENT OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 601 

to exercise its power again when the progress of society 
should require changes in the organic law. 

This constitution does not define what shall be consid- 
ered as constituting a " State," but recognizes the existence 
of the States as separate communities, dwelling in definite 
boundaries, and in possession of certain functions of govern- 
ment. They are referred to in a geographical sense, as 
in tlie clauses restricting the selection of representatives and 
senators to inhabitants of the States for which they should 
be chosen ; politically, as in the duties required of their gov- 
ernments ; and as communities, as in the guaranty to every 
State, — i e., people, — a republican form of government, and 
in the provision that no State should be deprived of its equal 
suffrage in the Senate without its consent. As the powers 
vested in the general government are enumerated, the resi- 
due remained in the State. The guaranty adopted in the 
first amendment to the Constitution — " that the powers not 
delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor pro- 
liibited to it by the States, are reserved to the States respec- 
tively or to the people " — was previously unwritten law. 
Thus the old right of local self-government was expressly 
recognized. 

Union was acknowledged as an already existing fact ; and 
the object of the Constitution was declared to be to make a 
more perfect Union. Government is provided for in a legis- 
lature consisting of two branches to make laws, a judiciary to 
interpret the law, and an executive power in a President, " to 
take care that the laws be faithfully executed." The Senate 
is based on State equality, the House on numbers. The 
powers enumerated which a government, under tliis Consti- 
tution, might exercise, were, in general, those which through- 
out the colonial age were proposed to be vested in a Union, 
— even the important power of levying taxes and collecting 
them, while leaving the local governments to levy and col- 
lect taxes for local purposes, being in Franklin's Albany 
plan. They provided for a government to act directly on 



602 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

individuals, instead of a league acting on States, as in (he 
Articles of Confederation ; for influence thus substituting 
public authority. The Union was endowed with political 
power, supreme in its sphere ; and though it had no power 
to make or to abolish the State governments, " yet," is the 
great comment of Madison, " if they were abolished, the 
General Government would be compelled, by the principh; 
of self-preservation, to reinstate them in their proper juris- 
diction." 1 

The spheres of the two governments. State and National, 
were defined with much exactness ; but, to determine con- 
troversies that might arise between the boundaries of their 
powers, it was provided that the judicial authority should 
extend to all cases under the Constitution, the laws, and 
treaties, naming in the list controversies between two or 
more States ; and that this power should be vested in a 
Suprouie Court, to be established by Congress. 

The laws made in pursuance of these powers, and all the 
treaties, were " to be the supreme law of the land," and the 
judges in every State were " to be bound thereby, any thing 
in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary not- 
withstanding ; " all officers, " both of the States and of the 
United States," were to bind themselves " by oath or affir- 
mation " to support this Constitution ; and it was to stand 
until amended in the form prescribed ; the final stage 
being that new articles should be ratified by three-fourths 
of the several States,- or by conventions of three-fourths of 
the States, as might be proposed by the Congress ; with the 
proviso that no State, without its consent, should be de- 
prived of its equal suffrage in the Senate. 

It was provided that the citizens of each State should be 
entitled to all the rights of citizens in the several States. 
The word " slave " is not in the Constitution ; and so peculiar 
and wise were the provisions, that, when State after State 
abolished slavery, no alteration was required to meet the 

1 Federalist, No. XIV., Dawson's ed., 1787. 



ESTABLISHMENT OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 603 

great social change. Nor would any change have been 
required, had all the States abolished slavery. Recent 
amendments prohibit its establishment, as the original 
instrument prohibited the States from granting an order 
of nobility. 

Article seventh and last is : " The ratification of the con- 
ventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the establish- 
ment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the 
same." 

On the 2d of July, 1788, the President of Congress 
informed that body that he had laid before them the ratifi- 
cations of the Constitution by the conventions of nine States. 
On that day a committee was appointed to report an act 
" for putting the said Constitution into operation." It was 
not, liowever, until the 13th of September that Congress agreed 
on a plan. The first Wednesday in January was fixed for 
the appointment of electors ; the first Wednesday in Feb- 
ruary for their meeting to vote for a President ; and the 
first Wednesday in March as the time, and New York as the 
place, for commencing proceedings under the Constitution. 

Accordingly the representatives and senators elect as- 
sembled in New York ; but it was not until a month after 
the time appointed that there was a quorum to transact 
business. On the 30th of April, 1789, Washington was in- 
ducted into the office of President of the United States with 
imposing ceremony ; Chancellor Livingston administering 
the oath in the balcony of the City Hall, and before a great 
assembly of citizens and the military. The President de- 
livered his inaugural address in the chamber, in the presence 
of both Houses of Congress, officers of the old government, 
and as many as could be accommodated. His first official 
act was fervent supplication to the Almighty " that his 
benediction might consecrate to the liberties and happiness 
of the people of the United States a government instituted 
by themselves for these essential purposes." He said : — 

" In the important revolution just accomplished in the 



604 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

system of their united government, the tranquil deliberations 
and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities, from 
which the event has resulted, cannot be compared with the 
means by which most governments have been established, 
without some return of pious gratitude, along with an hum- 
ble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem 
to presage." In the place of recommending particular 
measures, he paid a tribute " to the talents, the rectitude, 
and the patriotism which adorned the characters selected to 
devise and adopt them ; " and in these qualifications he be- 
held the surest pledges that the foundations of " the national 
policy would be laid in the pure and immutable principles of 
private morality, and the pre-eminence of free government be 
exemplified by all the attributes which can win the atlections 
of its citizens and command the respect of the world." " I 
dwell," he said, " on this prospect with every satisfaction 
which an ardent love of my country can inspire : since there 
is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists 
in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union 
between virtue and happiness, between duty and advan- 
tage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and mag- 
nanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity 
and felicity ; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the 
propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation 
that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which 
Heaven itself has ordained ; and since the preservation of 
the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican 
model of government, are justly considered as deeply, per- 
haps as finally, staked on the experiment intrusted to the 
hands of the American people." 

The new government is here termed an experiment. The 
tribute of Washington to the characters of the men whom the 
people had placed round him indicated how intelligently the 
people had acted in selecting agents to give this experiment 
a fair trial. The work before them was full of difficulty. 
Statesmen of the highest order of intellect — some, indeed, 



ESTABLISHMENT OF EEPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 605 

in the cabinet of Washington — lacked faith even in repub- 
licanism ; others trembled for the success of the new plan. 
After three months of labor in meeting the questions that 
came up, Madison, still a member of Congress, wrote : 
" We are in a wilderness without a single footstep to guide 
us." Washington, a republican, from the deep sincerity 
of his nature, gave to the plan the full weight of his in- 
fluence, and was a tower of strength. As difficulties were 
overcome, doubts were dispelled. The government in a few 
years proved adequate to meet every emergency. It was 
firmly established. The third President, in his inaugural, 
pronounced it " the strongest government on earth," and 
" the only one where every man, at the cnll of the law, 
would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet in- 
vasions of the public order as his own personal concern." 

Thus was the work of the Revolution at length accom- 
plished by the embodiment of the ideas of local self-gov- 
ernment and of national union in the Constitution as the 
organic law, and the establishment of a republican govern- 
ment that met the wants of the nation. 

This result was hailed with joy by men of liberal views all 
over the world. The feeling of this school was expressed by 
Mackintosh as he wrote : " America has emerged from her 
struggle into tranquillity and freedom, into affluence and 
credit ; and the authors of her constitution have constructed 
a great permanent experimental answer to the sophisms and 
declarations of the detractors of liberty." ^ Lord Brougham 
wrote in 1853, of the effects of the revolution, with the estab- 
lishment of this government: " It animated freemen all over 
the world to resist oppression. It gave an example of a 
great people not only emancipating themselves, but governing 
themselves without even a monarch to control or an aris- 
tocracy to restrain them ; and it demonstrated for the nrst 
time in the history of the world, contrary to all the pre- 

1 Miscellaneous Works of Sir James Mackintosh, 581. 



606 THE RISE OP THE REPUBLIC. 

dictions of statesmen and the theories of speculative in- 
quirers, that a great nation, when duly prepared for the 
task, is capable of self-government ; or, in other words, that a 
purely republican form of government can be formed and 
maintained in a country of vast extent, peopled by millions 
of inhabitants." ^ 

The republican government was a success, because in its 
operation it met the needs of the two fundamental con- 
ditions of American political life, diversity and union, as 
correlative forces — on the one hand, the development 
of the commonwealth or the State ; and, on the other, 
of the union or the nation. Lord Brougham appreciated 
the difficulty of framing an organic law prescribing the 
degrees of power which independent authorities, acting on 
the same people, might exercise without antagonism ; secur- 
ing efficiency to the general government, while leaving 
unimpaired the powers of the States. After analyzing the 
Constitution, he pronounced the " means devised the very 
greatest refinement in social policy to which any state of 
circumstances has given rise or to which any age has 
given birth." 2 

When this problem was solved, the Republic attained 
a firm foundation. It has been said that " no greater prob- 
lem in statesmanship remains to be solved and no greater 
contribution to civilization to be made."^ The advance in 
political science, however, did not stop with the achievement 
of the founders of the Republic ; but there can be no question 
respecting the value of this division of power as a conserva- 
tive force. It is the equilibrium of the system. It is the 
hope and guaranty of its permanency. It is the mission of 
the Republic to present the example of a polity, as an instru- 
ment to promote the common good, free from centralism on 
the one hand, and on the other from the checks and balan- 
ces, or organized antagonisms, which seek to preserve liberty 
by obstructing the exercise of power.* 

1 Political Philosophy, iii. p. 329. 2 Ibid., 336. 

8 Brownson's American Republic, 409. * Ibid., 409. 



ESTABLISHMENT OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 607 

The operation of the Constitution equalled the most san- 
guine expectations of its friends.^ There were angry contro- 
versies and fierce party struggles : it was interpreted and 
applied by political leaders under the bias of their several 
aims ; but all the differences ended under its authority. 
The decisions of the tribunals appointed to settle them 
were acquiesced in as those of the majority. Other modes 
were suggested in exciting periods. The maxim, however, 
was acted on, that the power which made the government 
alone could unmake it ; that the hand that imparted the life- 
giving principle must give the death-dealing stroke. It was 
ordained that the Constitution should be the supreme law of 
the land until the people of three-fourths of the States 
should alter it. This was accepted as public law.^ 

The increase of population and wealth, the enterprise in 
developing the boundless resources of the land ; educational 
institutions in every quarter ; freedom to worship God estab- 
lished, almost everywhere on the voluntary principle, with 
the result of a general maintenance of the Christian religion ; 
the majestic play of the political machine in every exi- 
gency of peace or war, — presented a wonderful spectacle 
of stability and progress. An eminent British historian, 
after a ten years' study of governments from the earliest 
times, wrote, in 1861, of this government, that it " actually 
secured, for what is really a long period of time, a greater 
amount of combined peace and freedom than was ever 
before enjoyed by so large a portion of the earth's surface. 
There have been, and still are, vaster despotic empires ; but 
never before has so large an inhabited territory remained 
for more than seventy years in the enjoyment of internal 
freedom and of exemption from the scoui'ge of internal 
war." 3 

At the close of the period here named, the Republic was 

1 This remark will be found in the inaugural address of .lolin Aii^inis. 

2 Tiiis view was taken by John Taylor, of Caroline, in his Works. 

8 History of Federal Government from the Foundation of the Achaian League to 
the Disruption of the United States, by Edward A. Freeman, i. 112. 



608 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

called to meet its great ordeal. When people in a large 
section of the country refused obedience to the supreme 
law of the Constitution, the public autliorities under it 
issued a call for its maintenance by arms. Millions re- 
sponded to this call as " their own personal concern." For 
four years the world looked with wonder on the gigantic 
struggle. The verdict rendered in the tribunal of force 
was in favor of the Constitution, — that there shall be but 
one Republic, with one law for all. It is an assurance that 
this republican government, based on the ideas of the Decla- 
ration of Independence, will be transmitted to posterity. 
The glaring inconsistency between these ideas, everywhere 
on the lips at the birth of the nation, and the fact of human 
bondage everywhere recognized in the local law, was swept 
entirely away by this awful providence. That supreme law 
now recognizes only tlie free and independent man as the 
unit of free and independent States, while all are associated 
in an indissoluble union.^ 

The unnatural struggle being over, the million of soldiers, 
following the example of the armies of the Revolution, re- 
turned to their peaceful vocations as citizens. The way 
was opened for the resumption by the people in insurrec- 
tion of their relations to the Union. 

The tide of population is bearing a Christian civiliza- 
tion, as embodied in American institutions, over the 
vast region between the Mississippi and the Pacific Coast. 
The process is simple. Individuals purchase land ; they 
" from the gift of God were in actual possession of the 
rights of man ; " ^ the law protects them ; under its aegis 
they gather into neighborhoods ; on the principle of con- 
tiguity, because they dwell near each other, they form 
municipalities, and become a territory with a government 
formed by Congress. On reaching an adequate population, 

1 See page 4. 

2 Ilani.say, History of the United States, iii. p. 8., where are comments on the 
difference between American and European principles in colonizing. 



ESTABLISHMENT OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 609 

they form a constitution, become a State, and are admitted 
into the Union on a footing of equality with the original 
States. Every new State is an additional guaranty for the 
perpetuity of the Union. 

In this manner the path of progress, like the sun, is from 
the east to the west. " As," WTote in 1758, Nathaniel Ames 
the father of the renowned Fisher Ames, " the celestial light 
of the gospel was directed here by the finger of God, it 
will doubtless finally drive the long, long night of heathenish 
darkness from America. So arts and sciences will change 
the face of nature in their tour from hence over the Apalach- 
ian Mountains to the Western Ocean ; and, as they march 
through the vast desert, the residence of wild beasts will be 
broken up, and their obscene howl cease for ever. Instead 
of wdiich, the stones and trees will dance together at the 
music of Orpheus, the rocks will disclose their hidden 
gems, and the inestimable treasures of gold and silver be 
broken up. Huge mountains of iron ore are already dis- 
covered, and vast stores are reserved for future generations : 
This metal, more useful than gold and silver, will employ 
millions of hands, not only to form the martial sword and 
peaceful share, alternately, but an infinity of utensils im- 
proved in the exercise of art and handicraft amongst men. 
Nature through all her works has stamped authority on 
this law ; namely that all fit matter shall be improved to its 
best purposes. Shall not, then, those vast quarries that 
teem with mechanic stone, those for structure be piled into 
great cities, and those for sculpture to perpetuate the honor 
of renowned heroes, even those who shall now save their 
country ? ye unborn inhabitants of America ! should 
this page escape the destined conflagration at the year's end, 
and these alphabetical letters remain legible, — when your 
eyes behold the sun after he has rolled the season round 
for two or three centuries more, you will know that in 
Anno Domini, 1758, we dreamed of your times." ^ 

1 Ames's Almanac, 1758, one of the most remarkable prophecies relating to 
America. 

.39 



610 THE RISE OP THE REPUBUC. 

The founders of the RepubHc left it as their dying injunc- 
tion to cherish the Union. Washington embodied their 
spirit in his farewell address, in which he presents it as the 
palladium of political safety and prosperity. Andrew Jack- 
son gave expression to the determined will of the nation, 
in the terse sentiment spoken at the right time, " The Fed- 
eral Union, it must be preserved." Abraham Lincoln, the 
martyr-president, said that the thousands who died for their 
country on the late battle-fields gave their lives " that the 
nation might live," and " that governments of the people, by 
the people, and for the people, should not perish from the 
earth." 

In the language of one of these Presidents : " It is 
not in a splendid government supported by aristocratic 
establishments that the people will find happiness or their 
liberties protection ; but in a plain system, void of pomp, — 
protecting all and granting favors to none, — dispensing its 
blessings like the dews of heaven unseen and unfelt, save 
in the freshness and beauty they contribute to produce. It 
is such a government that the genius of our people requires, 
— such a one only under which our States may remain ior 
ages to come, united, prosperous, and free." 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX. 



I. 

PLAN OF UNION, IN THE HANDWRITING OF THOMAS 
HUTCHINSON. 



From Massachusetts Archives, Vol. vi. pp. 171-176. 

A PLAN of Union of His Majesty's Colonies on the continent 
for their mutual defence and security. 

It is humbly proposed that by acLofParhament^ the House of 
Representatives of each colony be enjoined, within a limited time 
after the passing of such act, to choose members to represent them 
in a grand council, in the following proportion ; viz. : — 



Massachusetts Bay 7 

Connecticut 5 

New York 4 

Pennsylvajiia 6 

Virginia 7 

South Carolina 4 

New Hampshire 2 



Rhode Island .2 

New Jersey 3 

Maryland 4 

North Carolina 4 



In the whole 



48 



That the President for said Grand Council be appointed by and 
receive his salary from the Crown, and that, as soon as conveniently 
may be after such appointment, he call a meeting of the Council, to 
be held first in the city of Philadelphia. 

That the assent of the President be made necessary to all acts of 
the Council, saving the choice of a speaker. 

That the Council without their own consent shall neither be dis- 
solved, nor prorogued, nor continued sitting longer than six weeks 
at any one time. 

That the Council shall meet once in every year, and at such other 
times as they shall adjourn to as occasion shall require ; the place 



614 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

for the next meeting always to be determined before such adjourn- 
ment and upon an emergency. The President, having obtained in 
writing the consent of seven of the members, may call a special 
meeting of the Council at any time or place, provided due and 
timely notice be given. 

That the members of the Council be paid ten shillings sterling for 
every day's journeying and attendance, twenty miles to be accounted 
a day's travel. 

That upon the expiration of three years there shall be a neweleo 
tion of members for the Council, and always upon the death or resig- 
nation of any member shall be supplied by a new choice at the next 
sitting of the House of Representatives of the colony to which the 
deceased or resigning member belonged. 

-;;. That no member of the Council shall be chosen or appointed to 
any office, civil or military, by the President or Council. 

That twenty -five members shall be a quorum, provided there be 
among them one or more members from a major part of the colonies. 

That in case of the death or other incapacity of the President, the 
speaker of the Council for the time being shall be vested with the. 
powers and authorities of a President, to continue until there be an 
appointment by the Crown. 

That the President, by the advice of the Council, may hold and 
manage all Indian treaties in which the general interest or welfare 
of the colonies may be concerned ; and shall have the sole power 
of making peace with or declaring war against the Indian nations, of 
restraining and regulating aU Indian trade by laws and orders, with 
penalties annexed not extending to life and limb, all offences against 
such laws or orders to be tried and determined within the govern- 
ment where the offence shall be committed, according to the course 
of judicial proceeding in such government, in like manner as if such 
offence had been committed against the laws of such colony, and any 
offence that may be committed in any parts that shall not be within 
the certain bounds of any colony shall and may be tried and deter- 
mined in the colony where the offender shall be taken. 

That the President and Council shall have power to raise and pay 
soldiers, and build forts for the defence of any of the colonies, and 
for removing all encroachments upon His Majesty's territories, and 
for the annoyance of His Majesty's enemies, but not to impress men 
in any colony without the consent of its legislature. 

And in order to raise moneys sufficient for these purposes. 



APPENDIX. 615 

That the said President and Council be empowered to lay some gen- 
eral duty on wines and spirituous liquors or other luxurious consump- 
tions as shall appear to them just and equal on the several colonies, 
each colony to pay in proj^ortion to their members ; and if it shall ap- 
pear that the sum raised by any colony falls short of such proportion, 
and the deficiency shall not forthwith be paid by such colony, then, 
and as oft as it shall so happen, the said President and Council shall 
have power to lay additional duty on such colony until the deficiency 
be made good ; and if the sum raised from any colony shall exceed 
its proportions,, the surplus shall remain or be paid into the general 
treasury of such colony. And the accounts of the deposition of 
all moneys raised shall be annually settled, that the members of the 
council may make report of the same to the respective assemblies. 

That the President and Council shall appoint officers for collect- 
ing all such duties as shall be agreed on ; and all laws and orders for 
enforcing the payment thereof in any and every colony, and also all 
Ijiws and orders for restraining supplies to and communication with 
any of His Majesty's enemies, whether by flags of truce or in any 
other manner, shall be as fully and effectively observed and executed 
as if they had been the laws of that particular colony where any 
offence shall be committed, and all offences against such laws and 
orders shall be ti'ied and determined accordingly. 

That the President and Council may appoint a general treasurer, 
to reside in such colony as they shall judge most convenient, and also a 
particular treasurer for each colony, and from time to time may order 
the sums in each treasury into the general treasury, or draw on any 
particular treasurer as they shall think proper ; but no money shall 
issue out of any treasury without the special order of the President 
by the advice of the Council, except where sums have been appro- 
priated to particular purposes, and the President shall be specially 
empowered to draw for such sums. 

That the supreme command of all the military force employed by 
the President and Council be in the President, and that all subordi- 
nate military officers be appointed and commissioned by the President, 
with the advice of the Council ; and all civil officers, as treasurers, col- 
lectors, clerks, &c., sliall be chosen by the Coimcil and approved by 
the President ; and in case of vacancy in any civil or military ofiice, 
the Governor of the colony where the vacancy shall happen may 
appoint some person to supply the same until the pleasure of the 
Governor and Council shall be knowa. 



616 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Tluit notwithstanding the powers granted to the President and 
Council for the general defence of the colonies, yet any colony shall 
be at liberty upon an emergency to come into any measures for their 
particular defenr'.e, or for the defence of any neighboring colony when 
attacked, the reasonable charge whereof to be allowed by the Presi- 
dent and Council, and paid out of the general stock ; but no colony 
shall be at liberty to declare war against any enemy, or to begin any 
hostilities, except they have the du-ection and allowance of the Presi- 
dent and Council. 

That the continuation of the powers granted to the President and 
Council be limited to the term of six years from their first meeting, 
unless at the expiration of said six years there should be war between 
Great Britain and France, in which case the said powers shall con- 
tinue until the end of said war and then expire ; and, in case any stock 
shall then remain in the geijeral treasury, the same shall be restored 
to the several governments in proportion to their respective contri- 
butions. 

Which is humbly submitted. 

P. SAML. WATTS, Per Order. 
In Council, Dec. 26, 1754. Read and sent down. 



II. 

JOHN ADAMS TO MERCY WARREN. 

From Original Manuscripts in the Possession of Hon. Charies 
H. Warren. 

QuiNCY, 1S07. 
Dear Madam, — In the 306 page of your first volume, there 
are certain traits that I had overlooked : " Richard Henry Lee, 
Esq., was the first who dared explicitly to propose a Declaration of 
Independence. The proposal spread a sudden dismay, — a silent 
astonishment seemed to pervade the assembly," &c. These ex- 
pressions, Madam, could only have arisen from misinformation ; or 
perhaps I shall express myself more properly, by calling it a want 



APPENDIX. 617 

of more accurate and particular information of the proceedings in 
Congress. The truth is, the subject had long been perfectly familiar 
to the contemplation of all the members of Congress. The three 
great subjects, a Declaration of Independence, a Confedei'ation of 
the States, and Treaties with Foreign Powers, had been held up by 
me to the view of Congress for more than a year before this motion 
was made bj JNJi. Lee in concert with me. I had myself, for more 
than a year, scarcely suffered a day to pass without publicly advert- 
ing to these as measures of indispensable necessity, and earnestly 
urging Congress, by various arguments, to prepare themselves and 
the States and people to adopt them. It appeared to me that those 
gentlemen who still flattered themselves with hopes of reconciliation 
were extremely deficient in their knowledge of the haughty temj^er 
of the British Government and Nation, and of their sovereign con- 
tempt of us. It was very well known that some of the members 
would never consent. For a whole year I had earnestly contended 
for the first step, which appeared to me to be necessary, which was a 
recommendation to all the States to take the whole power of the 
Nation into their own hands, by instituting governments by the 
original authority of the people. It was not till the fifteenth day of 
May, 1776, that we carried the resolution. 

This measure, also, was concerted between Mr. Lee and myself, 
and supported by us, and carried after a long debate. IVIr. Lee and 
myself were appointed to draw up the resolution : it was drawn by 
my own hand, agreed to by Mr. Lee, and reported by me as Chair- 
man of the Committee. If you will please to read that resolution in 
the Journal of Congress, you will find that it amounted to a complete 
Declaration of Independence. What was it else ? It was a com- 
plete dissolution of all allegiance to the king. It was a complete 
assumption of all authority as well as powers. It was considered in 
this light by those who opposed it. Mr. Duane called it " a Machine 
to make independence." But in fact it was an assumption of Inde- 
pendence itself. There could be. therefore, no real astonishment in 
anybody when the motion was made by JNIr. Lee. If there was any 
affectation of astonishment, it was only by those who determined to 
oppose it to the last, the greatest part of whom left us upon that 
occasion, some recalled by their constituents, and others went over 
to the enemy. 

" The measure was advocated by John Adams." So it was, and 
so it had been for a year before ; and so many arguments used, and 



618 THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

SO many counter arguments used against it, that neither Mr. Adams 
nor Mr. Dickinson, produced a single new idea, or suggested a new 
thought. Mr. Adams " invoked the God of Eloquence." It is 
amazing to me whence this ridiculous story could have originated. 
I think I have read it in some of the former historians, from whom 
probably you received it. But you may depend upon it, Madam, it 
is totally false. The Supreme Being, it is true, is the God of Elo- 
(|uence, and of every other good ; but I should never have invoked 
him under that title. I remember very well what I did say ; but I 
will previously state a fact as it lies in my memory, which may be 
somewhat explanatory of it. In the previous multiplied debates 
which we had upon the subject of indejiendence, the delegates from 
New Jersey had voted against us : their constituents were informed 
of it, and recalled them, and sent us a new set on purpose to vote for 
independence. Among these were Chief Justice Stockton and Dr. 
Witherspoon. In a morning when Congress met, we expected the 
question would be put and carried without any further debate ; 
because we knew we had a majority, and thought that argument 
had been exhausted on both sides, as indeed it was, for nothing new 
was ever afterwards advanced on either side. But the Jersey dele- 
gates, appearing for the first time, desired that the question might be 
discussed. We observed to them that the question was so public, 
and had been so long discussed in pamphlets, newspapers, and at 
every fireside, that they could not be uninformed, and must have 
made up their minds. They said it was true they had not been 
inattentive to what had been passing abroad, but they had not 
heard the arguments in Congress, and did not incline to give their 
opinions until they should hear the sentiments of members there. 
Judge Stockton was most particularly importunate, till the members 
began to say, " Let the gentleman be gratified," and the eyes of the 
assembly were turned upon me, and several of them said, " Come, JNIr. 
Adams, you have had the subject longer at heart than any of us, and 
you must recapitulate the arguments." I was somewhat confused at 
this personal application to me, and would have been very glad to be 
excused ; but as no other person arose, after some time I said, " This 
is the first time of my life when I seriously wished for the genius 
and eloquence of the celebrated Orators of Athens and Rome : called 
in this unexpected and unprepared manner to exhibit all the argu- 
ments in favor of a measure the most important in my judgment 
that had ever been discussed in civil or political society, I had no 



APPENDIX. 619 

art or oratory to exhibit, and could produce nothing but simple 
reason and plain common sense. I felt mys(;]f oppressed by the 
weight of the subject ; and I believed if Demosthenes or Cicero 
had ever been called to deliberate on so great a question, neither 
would have relied on his own talents without a supplication to 
Minerva, and a sacrifice to Mercury or the God of Eloquence." 
All this, to be sure, was but a flourish, and not, as I conceive, a very 
bright exordium ; but I felt awkwardly. But nothing that I said 
had the most remote resemblance to " an invocation of the God of 
Eloquence." I did not think it necessary in that assembly to make 
an ostentation of piety by a solemn prayer ; but I believe I can safely 
say I had supplicated the Great Governor of the universe in relation 
to the independence of my country as often and as devoutly as Mr. 
Dickinson had done. 

Whether this crude idea was vented by any members of Congress 
from ill-will to me or merely from misunderstanding or misrecollec- 
tion, I know not. I wish some one had remembered the speech, for 
it is almost the only one I ever made that I wish was literally 
preserved. The delegates from New Jersey declared themselves 
perfectly satisfied ; and the question prevailed, notwithstanding Mr. 
Dickinson's superior " brilliancy of epithet." And now, Madam, 
I will relate an anecdote. Some of these expressions of mine have 
got into a work of the Abbe Raynal, and I will tell you in what 
manner. The Abbe was very inquisitive with me after my speeches 
in Congress ; said he had read some speeches in some of the publi- 
cations in Europe, which were attributed to me, and he wished I 
would furnish him with any that I had published or delivered. I 
said if he had seen any such speeches they were forgeries, for I never 
had published nor written a speech in my life made in any public 
assembly. Nor did I wish that any one I had ever delivered should 
be preserved in form, excepting one, and that was upon the question 
of independence. That had appeared to me the greatest question that 
ever was agitated, that the consequences of it would be felt over the 
whole globe ; and, therefore, when I was called to discuss it, I owned 
I had wished for the " genius and eloquence of the celebrated Orators 
of Athens and Rome," &c. ; but that I had made no minutes of what 
I said, and no part of it had been published. I thought no more of 
the conversation till the Abbj Pamphlet came out, and then I read, 
" Que n'ai-je re^u le genie et I'eloquence des celebres Orateurs 



620 THE EISE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

d' Athene et de Rome," &c., and these are all the true words of my 
speech that have ever appeared in print. I have mentioned this, 
because even this passage of Raynal has been belied in America 
to my disadvantage. 

I am, Madam, as usual, 

JOHN ADAMS. 
Mbs. Mercy Warren. 



INDEX. 



A. 

Aborigines, character of, 4. Not of the 
Society of Nations, 10. 

Acton, Mass., vote of, for a republic, 507. 

Acts of trade, instructions respecting, 
162. 

Adams, Abigail, 305. Urges a separa- 
tion, 453. 

Adams, Charles Francis, 335. Paper by, 
431. 

Adams, John, on towns, 26. On the 
affection for England, 68. On the aim 
of the ministry, 198. Canon and Feudal 
Law of, 198. On the rpon-importation 
agreement, 259. On the destruction 
of the tea, 309. On committees of cor- 
respondence, 327. Character of, 334. 
Entrance of, into public life, 335. On 
the congress of 1774, 361. On inde- 
pendence, 428, 491, 500, 514, 534, 535. 
Speech of, 536. Letter of, 538, 616. 
Service of, in promoting independence, 
546. Jetierson's tribute to, 547. On 
the appointment of Washington, 430. 
On the Union, 442. On a general 
government, 482. Proclamation writ- 
ten by, 491. On revolution, 491. Old 
age of, 533. On the confederation, 
669. On the establishment of govern- 
ment, 578. On the necessitv of taxa- 
tion, 579. 155, 316, 330, 332, 359, 361, 
364, 305, 370, 372, 376, 393, 402, 413, 
434, 444. 

Adams, John Quincj", 562. 

Adams, Samuel, on the affection for 
England, 68. Character of, 167. In- 
structions of Boston written by, 167. 
On the repeal of the Stamp Act, 197. 
On the future of America, 245. On 
royal instructions, 261. On Union, 
263, 287, 400. Motion of, for com- 
mittees of correspondence, 265. Faith 
of, 270. Advice of, to Rhode Island, 
277. On a congress, 285, 331. On 
the American cause, 292. On loj'alt}', 
349. On prayers in congress^ 364. 
Deprecates independence in 1775, 400. 
On the second petition, 442. Jefler- 
son on, 448. Letter of, on revolution, 
449. When independence urged by, 
453, 464. Caucuses held by, 469. 



On confederation, 470. On indepen- 
dence, 471. On a general govern- 
ment, 482. On disarming the Tories, 
485. On local government, 497. D. 
Webster on, 546. 209, 210, 211, 212, 
218, 219, 220, 244, 260, 206, 267, 274, 
305, 306, 308, 309, 314, 321, 32-3, 328, 
329, 330, 348, 359, 301, 362, 368, 372, 
389, 392, 406, 444, 447, 464, 472, 476, 
489, 490, 533, 537. % 

African race. 22, 103. 

Alaska, purchase of, 3. 

Albany, conference at, in 1685, 87. 
View of, 136. 

Albany Congress, meeting of, 136. See 
Convention of 1754. 

Albemarle County, Va , action of, 338, 
340. 

Alexander, James, 120, 126, 141. 

Allen, John, 118. 

Alsop, John, 364. 

America, maps of, 34, 73, 102. Prophe- 
cies respecting, 68, 100, 154, 199, 248, 
290, 343, 401, 462. 554, 609. Descrip- 
tion of, 156. Verses on, 157. In- 
structing her children, 195. Term 
used to signify one country, 182. 

American asylum, colonies termed, 106. 

American Constitution, idea of, for all the 
colonies kept in view, 30. Chief thing 
wanted in the colonial age, 110. Pre- 
dicted, 244. The common talk, 399. 
Not known by Galloway, 399. The 
foundations of, 401. Idea respecting, 
439. Vagueness respecting details of, 
562. Interest felt in, 569. Method ol 
maturing, 586. See Constitution of 
the United States. 

American race, how constituted, 10. 
Characteristics oi', 106, 404. Gadsden 
on, 188. Creed of, 404. Name of, 
519. P. Henry on, 188, 400. Title 
of, 583. Regarded as inferiors in Eng- 
land, 250. 

American Republic, ideal of, 462. Re- 
commended, 507. 

American Revolution, character of, 158. 

Ames, Nathaniel, prediction by, of Amer- 
ica, 609. 

Andrews, John, cited, 305, 482. 

Andros, Sir Edmund, on local govern- 
ment, 76. Imprisonment of, 82. 

Anglo-Saxons, polity of, 14. 



622 



INDEX. 



Anne Arundel County, Md., on inde- 
pendence, 526- 

Appleton, Nathaniel, 2G7. 

Arizona, purcliase of, 3. 

Arnold, Samuel Green, 19, 20. 

Articles of Confederation. See United 
States. 

Ash, 312. 

Assemblies, American, origin of, 17. 
Abrogation of, b}' .James II., 80. Re- 
sistance of, to arbitrary practices, 125. 
Views of government by, 127. Peti- 
tions of, against the Stamp Act, 173. 
Spirit of, in 1768, 230. 

Association of 177'! agreed upon, 372. 
Signed, 373, 441. Virtually law, 373. 
Hildreth on, 373. John Adams on, 
373. Approval of, 395. Action against, 
by the Tories, 395. Approval of gen- 
eral, 398. Kamsay on, 898. How 
viewed, 436, 459. 

Atkinson, Theodore, notice of, 137, 140. 

Atknison, Thomas, 119. 

Augusta Countv, on a constitution, 
510. 

Auchmuty, Robert, 278. 

B. 

Bacon, Nathaniel, notice of, 82. On a 
congress, 91. 

Bancroft, George, on popular assemblies, 
18. On the New England Confeder- 
acy, 67. On the population of the 
colonies, 75, 87, 105. On the Bute 
policy, 162. On the congress of 1774, 
362. 50, 72, 125, 131, 1.51, 155, 166, 
175, 180, 188, 190, 203, 241, 242, 245, 
246, 252, 413, 452, 471, 484, 485, 486. 

Barber, Nathaniel. 267. 

Barnes, Albert, 137. 

Barre, Isaac, speech of, against the Stamp 
Act, 175, 318. 

Barrett, , 219. 

Barrington, Lord, 215- 

Barrons, Benjamin, 162. 

Bartlett, Josiah, 383, 545, 569. 

Bayard, John, notice of, 520. 

Bayard, William, 185. 

Beale, Josias, 312. 

Beaufort, assembly called at, 253 

Behring, expeditions of, 102. 

Belcher, Ar.drew, 94, 119. 

Belcher, Jonathan, mes.sage of, 135. 

Belknap, .leremy, 20, 126. On inde- 
pendence, 46S. 

Bell, Robert, publication by, of "Com- 
mon Sense," 476. 

Bellamont, Lord, on the sentence of 
Liesler, 94. Captain-general, 115. On 
independence, 124. 

Bellingham, Richard, notice of, 57. 

Benedict's Historical Discourse cited, 16. 

Berkely, Bishop, lines of, 155. 

Bernard, Francis, on Union, 117, 210, 



213. Message of, 216, 218. Dissolu- 
tion of the Assembly bn, 220. 

Biddle, Edward, 363, 37i4'. 

Bigelow, , 219. 

Bishop, Samuel, 284. 

Blackstone, Sir William, on the preroga- 
tive, 127. 

Bland, Richard, 179. On Union, 199. 
2S0, 361, 510. 

Blome, Richard, geography of America, 
73. 

Boerum, Simon, 313. 364. 

Boetie, Stephen de la, republican ideas 
of, 8. 

Bollan, William, 409, 420. 

Boone, Daniel. 444. 

Borden, Joseph, 185, 189. 

Boston, instructions of, on the Stamp 
Act, 167, 168. Meeting of, Oct. 28, 
1767, 208. Elfect of, in England, 209. 
Tea shipped to, 298. Action in, 302, 
303, 304. Arrival of tea at, 305. 
Circular of, 321. Spectacle of, 324. 
Contributions for the poor of, 325. 
Meeting in, 332. Instructions of, on 
independence, 513. See Committees 
of Correspondence. 

Boston Committee of Correspondence. 
See Committee of Correspondence, 
Boston. 

Boston Port Act, origin of, 319. Pas- 
sage of, .320. Effect of, 321, 324. Ac- 
tion elicited by, 323. Mission of, 340. 
See Union. 

Boston Tea Party, numbers of, 309. 

Botetourt, Lord, notice of, 233. Ball in 
honor of, 240, 280. 

Bouvouloir, M. de, notice of, 488. 

Bowdoin, James, 274, 330. On Union, 
406, 568. Recommends a convention, 
586, 588. 

Bowers, Jerathmiel, 210, 218, 284. 

Bowler. Mctcalf, 185, 284. 

Boynton, Richard, 267. 

Bradford, John, 267. 

Bradford, William, 36. 

Bradstreet, Simon, 40, 60. At the head 
of the revolution, 82. Governor of 
Massachusetts, 82. Notice of, 85. On 
the New England Confederacy, 87. 
Urges Union, 88. Advises action, 89, 
90. Career and death of, 95. 

Braxton, Carter, 546. 

Breeden, Thomas, notice of, 51, 54. 

Brevard, Ephraim, 422 

Brice, Thomas, 312. 

British troops in Boston in 1774, 355. 

Broadhead, , 145. 

Brodhead, John Romeyn, 24, 35. 

Brodie, George, on popular movements, 
311. 

Brother Jonathan, 572. 

Brougham, Lord, on the American Rev- 
olution, 159, 605. On the govern- 
ment, 606. 

Brown, Moses, 284. 



INDEX. 



623 



Brown, Nicholas, 171. 

Browne, Sir Tb mas, prophecy of, 99. 

Brownson, O. A., cited, 606. 

Bryan, George, 185. 

Buchanan, George, character of, 7. 

Buckingham County, Va., on a consti- 
tution, 510. 

Bull, Henry, 82 Letter of, 91. 

Bull, William, Jr., 120. 

Bullock, Archibald, 254, 448. 

Bunker Hill, a lad at, 4-52. 

Bunker Hill Battle, 441. 

Burglis of .'Scotland, 15. 

Burgoyne, (ieneral, surrender of, 572. 

Burke" lidnunid, on the colonies, 405. 
Speech of, iOU. 

Burnaby on disunion, 152. 

Burnett, . 119. 

Burv, Viscount, remark of, on James II., 
81. On independence, 98, 154, 299. 

Bute, Lord, character of, 161. Policy 
of, 162. 



Cadiane, speech of, S6. 

California, acquisition of, 3. 

Campbell, Governor, 440. 

Canada, conquest of, 152, 161. Invita- 
tion to, 485. 

Cape Fear, letter of, 351. 

Carey, Archibald, 280, 389, 510. 

Carletou, General, operations of, 400, 
517. 

Carpenter's Hall, 360 

Carr, Dabney. 280,281 

Carr, Sir Robert, notice of, 54. 

Carroll, Charles, 254, 388, 526. 

Carroll, Charles, of Carrolton, 485, 526, 
527, 546. 

Castle William, order to garrison, 252. 

Caswell, Richard, 312, 363, 503, 508, 
590. 

Caucus, notice of, 167. 

Chalmers, George, on the aborigines, 10. 
On local rights, 76. On the aim of 
independence, 98, 154. On the oppo- 
sition to the Stamp Act, 301. Manu- 
script of, cited, 378. 

Chamberlaine, James Lloyd, 312. 

Chambers, John, 137. 

Champagnv, M. de, on centralization, 
14. 

Chandler, John, 137. 

Charles I., arbitrary course of, 35. 

Charles II., restoration of, 49. Death 
of 79. 

Charles County, Md., on independence, 
.027. 

Charleston in 1755, 156. On the non- 
importation agreement, 257. Tea 
shipped to, 298. Action in, 302, 313. 
Feeling m, on the Port Act, 323. Re- 
pulse of the British at, 460. 

Charle-stown, government by selectmen 



formed by, 17. Petition of, 27. Re- 
moval of powder from, 365- 

Charlutte County, Va. , on independence, 
507, 509. 

Chase, Samuel, 254, 361, 362, 448, 469, 
485, 526, 527, 540. 

Chase, Thomas, 388. 

Chase, William, 312. 

Chatelet on the future of America, 245. 

Chatham, Earl, on De Jure Kegni, 8. 
On the Declaratory Act, 250. On the 
government of America, 250-252 On 
the Tea Act, 297, 318 On the Port 
Act, 320. Eulogy on the congress, 381. 
JMotion of, for withdrawal of troops, 
409. 190, 201, 202. 

Chenevix, Richard, on the congress of 
1774, 381. 

Chester County, Va., committee of, dis- 
claim independence, 443. 

Chester, John, 120. 

Chicago, first steamboat at, 2. 

Choate, .John, 119. 

Clioiseul, Duke du, cited, 199. On the 
future of America, 245. Prediction of, 
402, 488. 

" Christian Commonwealth," condemna- 
tion of, by Massachusetts, 53. 

Christian idea of man, 6, 165, 402, 5.58. 

Christianity, basis of modern civiliza- 
tion, 6. Transformation of civil so- 
ciety by, 6. 

Chuich, Benjamin, notice of, 267, 268, 
285. 

Church membership, qualification of, for 
voters, 26. 

Circular Letter of Massachusetts in 1768, 
origin of, 211. Object of, 212. Royal 
order respecting, 215, 219. Replies 
to, from New Hampshire, 213; Vir- 
ginia, 213; New Jersey, 214; Con- 
necticut, 214; Maryland, 223; South 
Carolina. 224; Georgia, 224; Rhode 
Island, 225. Action on, by Pennsyl- 
vania, 225; by Delaware, 226. Reply 
to, by New "York, 226; by North 
Carolina, 227. Ho w regarded in Eng- 
land, 231. 

Civil war, verdict of the, 608. 

Clair, A. St., 588. 

Clarendon, Earl of, views of the colonies, 
49. 

Clark, Abram, 545. 

Clarkson, A., 185. 

Clay, .loseph, 312 

Cleaveland, Captain, 365. 

Clinton, George, Governor, 119. Speech 
of, IM. Letter of, 126. 

Clinton, George, 313, 419, 528, 568, 599. 

Clinton, Sir Henry, invasion of North 
Carolina by, 460, 502, 503. 

Clymer, George, 545, 590. 

Colden, Cadwallader, on New England 
maps, 102, 119. Plan of union of, 
151, 172, 191. On the congress of 
1765, 185, 368. 



624 



INDEX. 



Cole, John, 284. 

Colepepper, Lord, on the Virginia assem- 
bly, ID. 

Collier, AVilliam, 39. 

Collins, Edward, GO. 

Colonies, the original thirteen, area of, 
2 Settlement of, 9, 11. ITormation 
of popular assemblies in, 18. On 
municipalities in, 22. The elective 
franchise in, 25. On the union of, 28. 
Slow progress of population in, 34. 
Confederation in, 39. Charge against, 
of aiming at sovereignty, 45. Attain 
geographical unity, 55. View of, in 
1688, 73. Jealousy of the republican- 
ism of, 77. Fidelity o'', to their rights, 
81. Earliest conference of, between 
the Nortli and the South, 8G. Con- 
gress of, in 1690, 90. Political situa- 
tion of, in 1690, 98. Prophecy con- 
cerning, in 1684, 99. Population of, 
in 17b0, 103-105. A great American 
asylum, 106. Treated by Great Brit- 
ain as rivals, 107. Uncertainty of 
the law in, 108 Consolidation of, 114. 
Union of, urged, 109. Congresses held 
in, 118. Regard of, for the English 
constitution, 123. Fidelity of the as- 
semblies of, to self-government, 125. 
Encroachments of France on, 133. 
Convention of, 1754, 135. Plan of 
Union of, 140. Lovalty of. in 1760, 
153. 159. Policy for, of the Bute 
mniistry, 161. Alarm of, in relation to 
acts of trade, 162. Declaratory Re- 
solves respecting. 164. Formation of 
parties in, 164. The press on, in 1765, 
174. Resistance in, to the Stamp Act, 
176. Congress of the, in 1765, 185. 
Union of, how viewed, 191. Joy 
of, on the repeal of the Stamp Act, 
197. Prediction of the population of, 
200 Design of the Townshend Acts 
on, 203. Political unitv developed in, 
227. Fate of the petitions of, 231. 
Progress of political science in, 241 
Union of, 255. Confusion in, on the 
breaking up of the non-importation 
agreement, 256-260 Union of, pro- 
posed through committees of corre- 
spondence, 266, 279. Union of, devel- 
oped bv the Tea Act, 301, 313. Union 
of, elicited by the Port Act, 322. 342. 
Congress of,' in 1774, 359 Embodi- 
ment of the Union of. in the Associa- 
tion, 373 Record of the brotherhood 
of the, in 1774, 391. Vast importance 
of the Union of, 399. See United 
Colonies. 

Colvill. Admiral, letter of, cited, 162 

Columbus, Christopher, reference to, 69 

Commander in-chief, appointment of, 
429. 

Commerce of the West, beginnings of, 2. 

Commission relative to the destroyers of 
the Gaspee, 276. Session of, 278. 



Final session of, 286. Report of, 286. 
Probably the king's measure, 296. 

Commissioners of Charles II , powers of, 
54, 56, 62. Arrival of, in Boston, 54. 
News of, 56 Controversy with Mas- 
sachusetts. 58, 59 Chalmers on, 62. 
Hutchinson on, 63. 

Commissioners of Foreign Plantations, 
creation of, 35. Designs of, 37. 

Committees of Correspondence, sugges- 
tion of, in 1763, 163. Creation of, 
109 The Sons of Liberty form, 183. 
Ancient use of, 264 Controversy 
relative to, 288. Samuel Adams on, 
314. Tory view of, 328. 

Committees of Correspondence, Munici- 
pal, proposition for the formation of, 
by S. Adams, 263; and extension to 
ail the colonies, 282. Creation of, by 
Boston, 266. Extension of, in Massa- 
chusetts. 273. Hutchinson's condem- 
nation of, 274. Increase of, 313, 327. 
Elhcienc}' of, 300. John Adams on, 
327. 

Committee of Correspondence, Boston, 
2(33. Formation of, 266. Report by, 
288, 270, 276 Response to, 271. 
ElBciency of, 289. Journals of, 289 
Circular of, 303. Action of, on the tea 
issue, 304. On the Port Act, 321. 
Eulogy on, 328. 

Committees of Correspondence, Legisla- 
tive, proposition for, and choice of, by 
Virginia, 279. Choice of, bv Massa- 
chusetts, 281. By Rhode Isfand, 281. 
By Connecticut, 283. Bv New Hamp- 
shire, 233. By South Carolina, 28 S. 
Members of, 284. Commendation of, 
285. Remarks on, 288. Hutchinson 
on, 289. Inaction of, 300. 312 Cir- 
culars of Massachusetts, 303, 317, 322, 
348. Circular of Connecticut, 303. 
Increase of, 311. 

"Common Sense," publication of, 472. 
Citations from, 472- i76. Editions of, 
476, 477. Effect of, 476, 477, 479, 
586. 

Commonwealth, an American, urged, 
314 

Concord, expedition to, 414. Hostilities 
at, 415. 

Confederation, Articles of. See United 
States. 

Congress of 1690, call of, 90. Meeting 
of, 91. Result of, 92, 93. 

Congress of 1754. Sue Convention, Al- 
bany. 

Congress of 1765, proposed, 177. Call 
of, 178. Town of Providence on, 181. 
South Carolina on, 182. Meeting of, 
184. Members of, 185 Journals ol" 
186-189. Papers of, 187. Declara- 
tion of rights of, 186 Debates in, 
188 Petition to the king of, 187, 188. 
Signing of the petition of, 188, 189, 
192. Adjournment of, 189. Approval 



INDEX. 



625 



of, 190, 191. Torv view of, 191. 
Whig view of, 192. ' 

Congress, demand for, in 1773, 285. In 
1774, .-JU, 323, 329. Parties in favor 
of, .328. 

Congress of 1774, call for, 331. Pledges 
to abide b}' the decisions of, 330-340. 
Expectations relative to, 358. Sleet- 
ing of, 360. Character of, 360-302. 
Organization of, 364. Proceedings of, 
364-377. Association of 373. Aver- 
sion of, to revolution, 370. Dissolu- 
tion of, 377. Eulogy of, by the Whigs, 

377. Denunciation of, by the Tories, 

378. Modern judgment on, 380. 
Lord Chatham's eulogy on, 381. Dan- 
iel Webster on, 381. Chenevix on, 
381. Reflection of public sentiment 
by, 381. British eul-gy on, 408, 409. 

Congress of 1775-76, election of the mem- 
bers of. 413. Meeting of, 419. Char- 
acter of, 419. Credentials of the mem- 
bers of, 420. Aim oi, 432. Papers of, 
432-437. Temporary adjournment of, 

437. Petition of, to the king, called 
the second petition, 437. Charge of 
dissimulation against, examined, 437, 

438. Keassemhling of, 441. Hesita- 
tion of, 444. Answer to the second 
petition received by, 446. Recom- 
mendation of, to form local govern- 
ments independent of the crown, 448. 
Samuel Adams on the action of, 449. 
Decision and boldness of, 450. Ap- 
pointment by, of a committee of cor- 
respondence, 451. Work of, 458. 
P..wers of, 484, 486. Mission of, to 
Canada, 485. Tories disarmed by, 
485. Privateers authorized by, 486. 
Opening of the ports by, 486. Deal- 
ing of, with foreign powers, 487. 
Proclamation of, 489. Character of, 
532. Declaration by, of independence, 
539. Hee Independence. 

Ccngress of the United States, recogni- 
tion of, as the political power, 502. 
James Monroe on, 562. Recognition 
by, of the local governments as fbrraed 
on the power of the people, 503 ; and 
based on the rights of human nature, 
508. Action of, on the Articles of 
Confederation, 569, 570. Circular of, 
571, 572. Action of, on the western 
lands, 574. Ratification in. of the 
Articles of Confederation, 575, 570. 
Proclamation by, of the completion of 
the Confederation, 577. 

Congress, under the Confederation, con- 
clusion of peace by, 580. Reception 
by, of Washington's commission, 581. 
Announcement of peace by, 582. Dec- 
laration by, that informing treaties the 
United States should be considered as 
one nation, 583. Recommendation bj% 
of a convention to revise the Articles 
of Confederation, 589. Order of, trans- 



mitting the Constitution to the people, 
597. Action of, in carrying the Con- 
stitution into effect, 603. 

Congresses, from 1084 to 1751, 118. 

Connecticut, origin of the legislature of, 
19. Formation of municipalities in, 
25. Foundation of, 36. Charter of, 
52. Reply of, to Liesler, 84. On the 
Albany plan of union, 144, 147. Dele- 
gates of, to the Congress of 1765, 185. 
Circular of, 303. On a congress, 333. 
On the Port Act, 322. Delegates of, 
in the Congress of 1774, 362. Letters 
from, in 1774, 383. Approval by, of 
the Association, 395, 396. On inde- 
pendence, 530 Government of, 566. 

Consolidation, resolved on by the min- 
istry of 1688, 79. Remark of Hutch- 
inson, 80. Carried out by James II., 
80 Petitions for, 114. 

Constitution, American, the chief thing 
wanted, 110, 114, 117. See United 
States. 

Constitutions, State, nature of, 567. 

Convention of the colonies, termed mu- 
tinous, 121. 

Convention at Albany, 29. Character 
of, 138. Commi.ssions of the members 
of, 138. Treaties of, with the Indians, 
139. Journal of, 145. The press on, 
145. 

Convention at Annapolis, meeting of, 
587. Recommendation of, 587. 

Convention of 1787, suggestion of, 586. 
Proposition for, 587. Delegates of, 
chosen, 589. Recommendation of by 
congress, 589. Meeting of, 589. Ob- 
ject of, 589. Members of, 590. Labors 
of, 590. Journals of 590. Plans sub- 
mitted in. 591. Debates in, 592. 
Adoption bv, of a constitution, 696. 
Letter of, 597. 

Cooke. Nicholas, 505. 

Coolidge, Joseph, .)r , 548. 

Cooper, Grey, paper bv, 434. 

Cooper, Samuel, cited, 243. On inde- 
pendence, 506. 

Cooper, William, 260, 268 

Coplev, John Singleton, 427. 

Corbih, Richard, 488. 

Cornwallis, Lord, 580. 

Correspondence, Intercolonial, in 1689,84. 

Cotton, John. 186, 189. 

Council for Foreign Plantations, forma- 
tion of, 50. 

Council for New England, grant to, 35. 

Cortlandt. Stephanus Van, 86. 

Coutts, William, 312. 

Cowlev, Abraham, verses on America. 
71, 401. 

Coxe, Daniel, plan of union hy, 113. 

Crane, Stephen. 313, 363. 

Crevecoeur, on American character, 103, 
105. 

Cromwell, Oliver, notice of, 47. View 
of the colonies by, 48. 



40 



626 



INDEX. 



Crugor, John, 185, 312. 
Cummins, Francis, 429. 
dishing. Thomas, 178. 209, 218, 219, 

276, 28i, 3.30, 334, 3t3l. 332, 371, 372, 

375, 506. 



D. 



Dana, Francis, on committees of corre- 
spondence, 206. 

D'Anvillc, maps of, 102 

Danforth, Thomas, notice of, 57, 60. On 
the loyalty of the colonies 98. 

Dartmouth, Lord, notice of, 26-1. De- 
spatch of, on the destroyei's of the Gas- 
pee, 276 On the Khode Island com- 
mission. 28!), 318, 344. Instructions 
on the Kecjulating Act, 354. On open 
war, 409, 446. 

Davenant, Charles, plan of union bv, 
111, 112. 

Davenport, Addington, 119. 

Davis, Caleb, 267. 

Dawson, Heiirv B., 184, 506. 

Deane, Charles", 16, 38, 46. 

Deane, Silas, 284, 362. Cited, 365. On 
AVashington, 431. Notice of, 488. 

Declaration of Independence, committee 
to prepare a, 517. Draft of, reported, 
532. Debate on, 539. Adoption of, 
539. Authentication of, 544 Fac- 
simile, of the original draft of, 544. 
Engrossment of, 545. Signing of, 545. 
Manuscript of, 545 Facsimile of, 545. 
Signers of, 545. Eulogies on, 547. 
Welcome of, 548. Official transmis 
sion of, 551. Characteristics of, 555- 
560. See Independence. 

Declaratory Act, 201, 202, 241. Nature 
of, 250. 

Dehart. .Tohn, 363, 372 

"De Jure Kegni " cited, 7. Editions 
of, 8. Mackintosh on, 8. Lord Chat- 
ham on, 8. 

De Kalb, Baron, 245. 

Delancv, James, 119. Notice of, 137. 
Speech of 128, 139. Opposes the Al- 
bany plan, 144, 147, 312. 

Delaware, origin of tlie assembly of, 21. 
In 1643, 34. Delegates of, in the con- 
gress of 1765, 185; in the congress of 
1774, 363. Chooses a committee of 
correspondence, 312. Letters from, in 
1774, 387. Approves the Association, 
396. On independence, 467, 523, 537. 
Formation of government in. 564 

De Lisle, map of, 73. Maps of, 102. 

Derbv, Richard, Jr , 284. 

De 'locqueville, on physical character- 
istics, 2. On the aborigines, 5. On 
society in America, 12, 13. On munic- 
ipalities, 15. On newspapers, 129. 

Dexter, 210. 

Dickinson, John, member of the 1765 
congress, 185, 186. Letter of, on the 



American cause, 207. " The Farmers' 
Letters" by, 208 On taking up arms, 
400. Opposition of, to independence, 
405. 483, 515, 535, 537, 5:i8. Letter 
of, cited, 465. On a general govern- 
ment, 482. 237, 329, 338, 3(30, 361, 
375, 376, 435, 481, 488, 523, 524, 546 
569, 574, 587, 590, 591, 618. 

Digges, Dudley, 280. 

Dinwiddie, Governor, scheme of, 117. 

Discovery, rights of, 9. 

Dobbs, Governor, on Albany plan of 
Union, 146. 

Domestic manufactures, encouragement 
of, 193, 240. 

Donation Committee of Boston, re- 
plies of, 382. Replv to New Hamj)- 
shire, 383. To Connecticut, 384. To 
Rhode Island, 385. To New York, 
386. To New Jersev, 386. To Penn- 
svlvania, 387. To Delaware, 387. To 
Marvland, 388. To Virginia, 389. To 
North Carolina, 390. 

Donations for the poor of Boston, con- 
tinuation of, for ten months, 382. Ac- 
companying correspondence, 382. Re- 
marks on the record, 381- 

Dongan, Thomas, proposes a conference 
at Albany, 86. Views of, as to France, 
87. 

Donne, cited, 346. 

Dorchester, trial of municipal form in, 
17. 

Draper, John William, on national life, 4. 
On man in the Roman world, 6. 

Dravton, William Henrv. 413. On in- 
dependence, 461, 462, 494, 530. 

Duane, James, 361, 364. 368. 369, 372. 
On local government, 497, 617. 

Duch^, Jacob, 364, 305, 419. 

Dudley, Joseph, condemnation of, 94. 

Dudley, Thomas, 40. 

Duer, , 565. 

Duke of York, grant to. 53. 

Dulanj', Daniel, on American industry, 
194, 196 

Dumas, Charles, letter of congress to, 
487. 

Dummer, Jeremiah, on Union, 151, 153, 
155. 

Dunmore. Earl, 281, 440. Burns Nor- 
folk, 460, 488, 508. 

Durand, on the future of America, 245. 

Dutch, settlements of, 10. 

Dwight, Joseph, 120. 

Dwight, Tinicithv, on independence, 453. 

Dyer, Eliphalet,"l85, 360, 302, 372. 



E. 



Eaton, Theophilus, 39. 

Eden. Robert, 440. Letter of, cited, 526 

527. 
Edward, Prince Charles, 502. 
Edwards, Jonathan, 405. 



INDEX. 



627 



Eliot, John, Christian Commonwealth 
of, 49. 

Eliot, John, on independence, 469. 

Ellerv, William, 504, 545. 

Ellsworth, Oliver, 590. 

Emigrants, character of, 10. Motives of, 
11. 

England, indifference of to colonization, 
35. Affection for, 67. 68. Love for 
the flag. 124. Spirit of, towards the 
colonies, 107. Policy of, 161. 

English colonies, Ulome on, in 1687, 75. 

English constitution, colonial respect for, 
124. 

"E Plurihus Unum," 11, 578. 

Erie, Lake, first government vessel in, 2. 

"Essai Historique," on the transforma- 
tion of society, account of, 6. 

Eutaw, victory at, 580. 



F. 



Fair.lix Country, Va., action of, 338, 340. 
Condemnation by, of the Regulating 
Acts, 350. 

Farmer's Letters, 208. 

Fauquier, Governor, 192. 

Federalist, publication of the, 599. 

Fenwick, George, 39. 

Fisher, Hendrick, 185, 189, 313. 

Fitch, Thomas, 185. 

Five Nations, desire of, for peace, 86. 
Condolence of, 88. Conferences with, 
118-J20. 

Flag of the United Colonies, unfurling 
of, 468. 

Flag of the United States, description 
of, 578. 

Fletcher, Governor, 118. 

Florida, purchase of, 3. Boundary of, 
103. 

Floyd, William, 364, 545. 

Flacker, Thomas, 331. 

Folsom, Nathaniel, 363, 372. 

"Fortv-five," origin of the political use 
of, 229. 

Foster, Hopestill, 60. 

Foster, Jedediah, 284. 

"Fourteenth of August," uprising of 
the, 183 

Fox, Charles James, on American ques- 
tions, 79. 

Fox, George, journey of, in 1671, 98. 

France, territory of, in America, 1688, 
72. Population of, 73. Designs of, 
85. 130. (Jlaims of, 87, 102 Menace 
of, 108. Sack of Schenectady by, 88. 
Alliance with, .572, 573 

" Franco-Gallia," cited. 8. 

Franklin, Benjamin, prediction of, 2 
Plan of union of, 141-144, 149, 433. 
Conception by, of a general govern- 
ment, 149. On disunion, 152. On 
liberty, 157. On roval instructions, 
251. On the Boston Report, 270. On 



the feeling for the nation, 295. On the 
Tea Act, Z97. On paying for the tea, 
334 Last message ot, to Lord North, 
413 On the second petition, 439. 
On the Confederation, 481. On pri- 
vateers, 486. On indepenilence, 489. 
Speech of, on the Constitution, 592, 
594. 137, 138, 140, 153, 155, 250, 298, 
405, 409, 419, 420, 434, 443. 453, 469, 
471, 472, 485, 488, 517, 533, 538, 544, 
545, 505, 585. 590, 596. 

Franklin, William, 191, 368, 418, 440. 
Against independence, 466, 524, 525. 

Frei^rick County, Md., 527. 

Freeman, E A., cited, on republican gov- 
ernment, 607. 

Freeman, Samuel, 491, 507. 

Frelinghuysen, Frederick, 525. 

Fry, 220. 

G. 

Gadsden, Christopher, character of, 182, 
185. In the congress of 1765, 188. 
On Union, 190, 193, 314,329. Against 
paying for the tea, 334, 338. 360, 361, 
363. Urges independence, 494, 546. 

Gage, Thomas, cited, 318. Reception 
of, in 1774, 329. Action of, 3-30 
Proclamation of. 337, 350, 351. 354. 
Receives the Regulating Acts, 355. 
Executes the Regulating Acts, 355. 
Disarms the people, 365, 368. Letter 
of congress to, 368. Orders an expe- 
dition to Concord, 414. Recall of, 444, 
446. 

Gallagher, address of, cited, 2. 

Gallowav, Joseph, 329. Views of, 361, 
363, 367, 368, 369, 372. Declared 
Union impossible, 399. Views of, 
458. 

Gardiner, Thomas, 284. Letter of, 356. 

Gaspee, seizures by, 253. Destruction 
of, 254. See Commission. 

George III., character of; 161. Speech 
of, in 1764, cited, 164. Orders of, 
respecting the Circular Letter, 215. 
Order of, to the Massachusetts As- 
sembly, 215. Orders of, to the assem- 
blies, 221. On America, 295. On the 
Rhode-Island Commission, 296. On 
the Tea Act, 296, 297, 317. On the 
destruction of the tea, 319. Views of, 
in 1774, 344, 346. Conversation of, 
with Hutchinson, 353. Motives of, 

407. On Americans, 407. Speech of. 

408. Urges force, 410. On Lord 
North's plan, 410 Recalls General 
Gage, 444. Directs a proclamation to 
be Iramed, 445. Gayety of, 446. De- 
clares the war for an American em- 
pire, 456. On North Carolina, 502. 

Georgia founded, 104. Settlers of, 11. 

Origin of the Assembly of, 21. Muni- 

. cipalities in, 23. Delegates of, in the 



628 



INDEX. 



congress of 1775, 441 Assembl}' of, 
254. Denunciation of, 257. Chooses 
committee of correspondence, 311. 
Letters from, in 1774, 390. Action of, 
on the Association, 395, 398. In the 
congress of 1775, 419. On indepen- 
dence, 528. Constitution of, 566. 

Gerard, M., 573 

Germain, Lord George, 296. Speech of, 
345, 346 Head of the American de- 
partment, 457. Aim of, 457. De- 
spatches of, 458, 502, 509. 

Germanic race, 10. 

Germans, emigration of 103. 

Gerry, Elbridge, enters congress, 484. 
Asks instructions in favor of inde- 
pendence, 501. On independence, 505. 
On instructions, 514. 234, 284, 322, 
430, 469, 545, 546,590, 596. 

Gerviuus, cited on municipalities, 15, 31. 

Gibbon, Edward, on the Koman Empire, 
3. Cited, 457. 

Giddinge, .John, 284. 

Gold, Nathaniel, 91, 92. 

Goldsborough, Robert, 362. 372. 

Gookin, Daniel, notice of, 57, 60. 

Gordon, Thomas, 20. On the growth of 
the nation, 564. 

Gordon, William, on the destruction of 
the tea, 310. On the Association, 436. 

Gorges, Ferdinando, notice of, 37. 

Gorham, Nathaniel, 590. Motion of, 595. 

Goths, polity of. 14. 

Government in the United States, ele- 
ments of. 31. Early defence of the ' 
fundamentals of, 61-64. Aim to estab- 
lish, 479. 482. Effect of the establish- 
ment of, 578. See Constitution. 

Great Barrington, uprising at, 356. 

Great Bridge, battle of, 460, 509. 

Green, James, Jr., 504. 

Greene, Nathaniel, 469. On indepen- 
dence, 470 Campaign of, 580. 

Greenleaf, Jonathan, 284. 

Greenleaf, Thomas, 252. 

Greenleaf, William, 267. 

Greiiville, George, proposes the Stamp 
Act. 164. On the king's order, 220 

Greyson, Thomas, 39. 

Gridley, Jeremiah, 335. 

Grigsby, Hugh Blair, 424, 501, 508, 510. 

Guyot, on the aborigines, 5. 

Guizot, cited,15. On revolutions, 165. 
On sovereignty, 424. 

Gwinnett, Button, 546, 569. 



H. 



Haldimand, General, on the Americans, 

445. 
Halifax. Lord, notice of, 131. On Union, 

151. 
Halifax, Marquis of, views on -Xmerica, 

78. Dismissed from office, 79. 
Hall, John, 312. 



Hall, Lyman, 546. 

Hallam, Henry, on La Boetie, 8. On 
Locke, 9. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 338, 528 On the 
necessity of retbrm, 579. Character 
of, 584. Suggests a convention. 586, 
587. On the defects of the Confeder- 
acy, 588. 590, 591. On signing the 
Constitution, 595. Remark of, 596. 
Motion of, 597. Service of, 599. Es- 
says in the Federalist by, 599. 

Hamilton, Governor, 118. _ 

Hammond, Lawrence, journal of, cited, 
94. 

Hammond, Matthias, 312. 

Hancock, John, notice of, 210. Presi- 
dent of congxess, 429. 219. 220. 284, 
305, 309, 317, 392, 435, 498, 514, 533, 
538, 544, 545, 546, 568. 

Hanover County, Va., committee of, on 
independence, 443. 

Hanoverians, enlistment of, 447. 

Harnett, Cornelius, 312, 469, 503. 

Harrison, Benjamin, letter of, on com- 
mittees of coiTespondence, 289, 282, 
443. 448, 487, 514, 534, 538, 53y, 546. 

Harrison, Robert, 340. 

Hart, John, 545. 

Hartley, David, on England, 439. 

Harve>, John, 312, 363. 

Haslett, Richard 554. 

Hawley, Joseph, notice of, 210. On 
Union, 359. Suggests a parliament 
of two houses, 453, 469. On a gen- 
eral government, 482. On indepen- 
dence, 504, 506. On the instructions 
of the towns, 508. 

Hay, Anthony, 238 

HaVnes, John, notice of, 37. On Union, 
39. 

Hazard, Ebenezer, on the congress of 
1775, 420. 

Heath, William, 284, 317. 

Hendricks, speech of, 140. 

Henry, Patrick, ciiaracter of, 179. Re- 
solves of, 179, 181J. Remark on being 
an American, 400, 469. On a con- 
federation, 482, 510. Advocates in- 
dependence, 510, 512. 234, 279. 280, 
359, 361, 364, 371, 372, 376, 568, 590, 
599. 

Herbert, George, verses of, cited, 70, 
401. 

Herring, John, 364. 

Ilewes, Joseph, 312, 363, 546, 563. 

Heyward, Thomas, Jr., t)46 

Higginson, Francis, farewell of, to Eng- 
land, 67. 

Highland settlers, action of, 502. 

Hill, Alexander, 267. 

Hillsborough, Lord, notice of, 206. On 
the Circular Letter, 215, 210. Circular 
of 221. The press on, 222. On re- 
publicanism, 250. 260. 

Hiiichman, John, 313. 

Hinckley, Josiah, favors a congress, 91. 



INDEX. 



629 



Ilin(klc3', Thomas, on loyalty, 81. Gov- 
ernor oi' i'lyiiiouth, 82. 

History, Anerican, source of error in, 67. 
Springs of, 129. Character of, 342. 

Ilogi,^ James, memorial of, cited, 444. 

llokk-niesse, Earl, circular of 1753, 131. 

Holland, Edward, 120. 

Hondius, map by, of America, 34. 

Hooker, John, on Union, 39. On the 
New England Confederacy. 40. 

Hooker, William, eulogv of, on England, 
67. 

Hooper, William, 312, 363, 448, 481, 
503, 540. 

Hopkins, Edward, 39. 

Hopkins, Stephen, notice of, 137. Pam- 
phlet by, 172. Asks instructions on in- 
dependence. 501,504. Cited on inde- 
pendence, 595. 140. 138, 171, 284, 
360, 362, 372, 545, 569. 

Hopkinson, Francis, 532, 569. 

Horsemanden, Daniel, 278. 

Howard, Lord Francis, speech of, 86. 

Howard, Martin. Jr., 137. 

Howe, , 312. 

Howe, Robert, 504. 

Howe, Sir William, 446. 

Huguenots, settlements of the, 10. 

Humboldt, Alexander, on the reforma- 
tion, 5. 

Huntington, Samuel, 545. 

Huske, map of, 103. 

Humpliries, Charles, 303 

Humphries, , 537, 538. 

Hutchinson, Thomas, on consolidation, 
80, 119. Notice of, 137, 144, 145. 
Plan of a Union by, 147, 613. On 
independence, 154 ' On parties, 166, 
205. On the future of America, 244. 
On Union, 259, 263, 270, 276. On 
committees of correspondence, 274, 
275. On the tea issue 305, 308, 309, 
318. On a congress, 332. Interview 
of, with the king, 353. 



Independence, charge of aiming at, made 
to Laud, 37; in 1646, 45; in 1661, 51, 
52, 54, 59, 66; in 1689, 97. By the 
Lords of Trade, 124, 120. Kept up 
for seventy years, 153. During the 
period of the Stamp Act, 197. During 
the Townshend Acts, 232. Made by 
the king, 456. 

Independence disclaimed, 38, 46, 52. 56, 
66, 97, 153, 197, 232, 290; in 1768, 
220, 242; in 1771, 290; in 1774, 315; 
in 1775, 443, 465. 

Independence, predicted, 99. 100, 153, 
174, 198, 199; by S. Adams, 245, 400; 
by French statesmen, 245; by the 
colonial press, 291, 292. To take place 
in fifteen years, 292, 401, 402- Fro- 



posed by the New Hampshire conven- 
tion in May, 1775, 421. Determined 
on, 448, 453. Advocated by the press, 
452. Urged by the popular leaders, 
460. Argument for. 460. Opposed 
by Tories^ 463. By Whigs, 463. Some 
of the arguments against, 464 Pro- 
nounced premature, 465. Instructions 
against, 465. Growth of the idea of, 
468. Urged in Virginia, 468. In Mas- 
sachusetts, 468 Partv for, in Januarv, 
1776, 408. CaucusRs'on, 469. General 
discussion of, 477. Formation of parties 
on. 478. Pressure on congress to de- 
clare, 483. Opposition to, 483. Party 
for,in congress,484. Contemplated, 488. 
P'ranklin on, 489 Samuel Adams on, 
489. John Adams on, 490. Elaborate 
piece against, 493. Urged m South 
Carolina. 494. Duane against, 497. Ori- 
gin of a popular movement for, 499, 500. 
"A Lover of Order" on, 499. Effort 
to repeal instructions against, 500. 
North Carolina on, 502-504 Rhode 
Island on, 504. Massachusetts on, 
505, 529. Virginia on, 508 Four 
colonies on, 512 Popular party aglow 
for, 512. Boston on, 513. Motion 
for, in congress, 513. First debate on, 
515, 516. Vote on, postponed, 516. 
Activitj' of the movement for, 517. 
Opposition to, 518. Pennsvlvania on, 
519-523. Delaware on, 523. New 
Jersey on, 524. Maryland on, 525. 
Georgia on, 528. South ('arolina on, 
528. New York on, 528. Ripeness 
of New England for, 529. Unanim- 
ity of Massachusetts for, 529. Con- 
necticut on, 530. New Hampshire 
on, 530. Vote on, 537. Postponed 
one day, 538. Resolution for, adopted, 
538. Twelve colonies empowered 
their representatives to act on, 530. 
Drayton on, 530. Public opinion on, 
in June, 1776, 531. Motion for, con- 
sidered, 533. Action of New York on, 
544. A joint act, 554. Letter of John 
Adams on, 554, 616. Haslett on, 554. 
The press on. 554. 

Independence Hall, meeting of conven- 
tion in, 589. 

Independent nation, idea of, in 1772-73, 
290, 292. 

Indians, assaults by, in 1643, 36. 

Ingersoll, Jared, notice of. 175, 590. 

Innis, on the name of America, 400. 

Intercolonial correspondence in 1697 and 
1723, 121. 

J. 

Jack, James, 429. 

Jackson, Andrew, proclamation of, cited, 

554. On the Union, 610. 
Jackson, Edward, 60. 



630 



INDEX. 



James II., accession ofj 79. Tyranny of, 

general, 81. 
James City, Va.. House of Burgesses 

meet at, 17. On independence, 509. 
Janney, James, 312. 
Jay, John, 361, 364, 368, 372. 374, 386, 

435, 453, 483, 485, 488, 524, 528, 544, 

546, 5G6. 

Jay,WiIliam, Life of John Jay, cited, 436. 

Jefferson, Thomas, character of, 234. 
Action of on pcr.';onal liberty, 235 On 
committees of correspondence, 279. 
On the Port Act, 324 On abiding by 
the acts of congress, 340. Summary of 
the rights of America by, 431. On Lord 
North's plan in Virginia, 418. Notes 
on Virginia, 428. Enters congress, 
431, 434. On Lord North's plan in 
congress, 434. On independence, 469. 
Debates of, on independence, 516, 539. 
Draft of the Declaration by, 532. 
Merit of, in preparing the Declaration, 

547. On the idea of a nation, 563, 
586. On the strength of the govern- 
ment, 605. On Joseph Wan-en, 268. 
On J. Adams, 533. 160, 179, 279, 
280, 281, 316, 323, 3-38, 479, 514, 544, 
546, 568, 582, 585. 

Jenckes, L)aniel, 171. 

Johnson, Edward, 60. 

Johnson, , plan of union by, 151. 

Johnson, Thomas, 254, 312, 361. 362, 
372, 376. Nomination by, of Wash- 
ington, 430. On the action of con- 
gress, 442. 527, 568. 

Johnson, William, notice of, 137. 

Johnson, William Samuel, 185, 187, 188. 

Johnston, Samuel, 312. 

Johnstone, Governor, 318. 

" Join or Die," cited, 135. 

Jonathan, name of, 572. Americans 
called, 572. 

Jones, Noble Wimberly, 254, 312, 441. 

Jones, Paul, 577. 

"Journal of the Times," cited, 237. 

K. 

Kalm, 155. 

Kamtchatka, when known, 102. 

Keith, William, 119. On Union, 151. 

Suggests stamp duties, 151. 
Kennedy, Archibald, 119. Plan of 

union of, 116, l4l. 
Kentucky. See Transylvania. 
King's Proclamation, answer to, 451. 

Verses elicited by, 451. Effect of, 

454. 
King, Rufus, 590. 
Kinsey, James, 313, 363. 
Kissam, Daniel, 313. 
Knowles, John, 80. 
Knox, Andrew, 364. 
Knox, William, on the aim of England, 

161. 



L. 

Lamb, John, 313. 

Landor, Walter Savage, cited, 518. 

Lands, title of, 10. 

Langdon, .John, 568, 59-0. 

Lanquet. Hubert, on popular rights, 8. 

Lanoy, P. D.. 91, 92. 

]..aud. Archbishop, jealous of the colo- 
nies, 37. 

Laurens, Henr}-, 440, 570. On public 
sentiment in 1778, 572. 

Lawrence, John, 185. 

Lebanon, Conn., letter of, 352. 

Lee, Arthur, cited on ro)'al instructions, 
255. On non- importation, 257. On 
the action of New York, 257. On 
the Gaspee commission, 278. On the 
Tea Act, 298, 409, 420. Letter of con- 
gress to, 487. 

Lee, Charles, cited on the public spirit, 
394. 

Lee, Francis L., 279, 546. 

Lee, Richard Henry, notice of, 172. On 
America, 198. On independence, 469, 
501. Motion in congress by, 513, 514. 
Suggestion by, of a convention. 586. 
166, 234, 276, 279, 280, 282, -329, .361, 
363, 364, 372, 374, 375. 376, 434, 444, 
496, 544, 546, 585, 616, 617. 

Lee, William, cited, 286. 

Leisler, Jacob, 82. Character of, 83. 
Opposers of, 84. Invites correspond- 
ence, 84. Eulogy on, 84. Reply of, 
to Maryland, 85. To Massachusetts, 
85. Lack of administrative ability by, 
88. On a congress, 90, 91, 92, 93. Ex- 
ecution of, 94. 

Leonard, Daniel, 284, 393. 

Lespinward, Leonard, 185. 

Leverett, John, notice of, 51. On alle- 
giance. 52, 57, 64. 

Lewis Francis, 545. 

Lexington, hostilities at, 415. Effect of, 
415. 

Liberty Tree, in Boston, 183. 

Lincoln, Abraham, on government, 610. 

Lincoln, Benjamin. 392, 588. 

Livingston. Philip, 119, 172, 185, 187, 
360, 361, 364. 

Livingston, Robert, scheme of, 115, 119. 

Livingston, Robert R , on independence, 
515. On settling disputes. 578. 172, 
185, 188, 483. 515, 517, 528. 569, 590. 

Livingston, William, on the future of 
America, 244. 361, 363, 372, 374, 483, 
568. 

Lloyd, Edward, 312. 
Lloyd, Robert, 185. 

Local self-government, definition of, 14. 
Theory of 20. Among the (ioths, 14; 
the Saxons, 15. In England, 15. An- 
cient freedom of, undermined, 15. Ap- 
plied in America, 15. In the covenant 
at Cape Cod, 16 In the towns of New 



INDEX. 



631 



England, 16. In the House of Burgesses 
in Virginia, 17 In the formation of 
free assemblies, 18-27. Base of thir- 
teen communities, 28. Reed on the 
spread of 32. Jealousy of, in England, 
37. Recognition of, in the New Eng- 
land <'oiiicdoracy, 41, 42. Acquies- 
cence in, by the L' ng Parliament, 47. 
Misrepresentation of, 51. Commis- 
sion to interfere with, 55. Fidelitj' 
of IMassachusetts to, 59, CO. Applied 
under general powers from the crown, 
76, 104, 123. Regarded as a growth 
of republicanism, 77- Debate in the 
Privy Council on, 78. Decision to 
interfere with. 79. Gross violation 
of, by James 11., 80. Fidelity of the 
colonies to, 81. The individual free- 
dom developed by. 122 Fidelity of 
colonists to, from 1690 to 1760, "l23. 
Misrepresentations by royal governors 
of. 124. Abridgment of, designed bv 
the ministry, l'25, 131, 161, 170. Rec- 
ognition of, in the Albany plan of 
union, 142. 148. 150. A'bridgment 
of, in the plan of the Bute ministry, 
161. Rumors respecting, 163. De- 
clared the source of all evils, 170. As- 
sertion of the right of, by Virginia. 
173; by the press, 174. The aggres- 
sion on, by the Stamp Act, 175. Right 
of. asserted in Henry's Resolves, 186; 
and by the .Stamp-act congress, 187. 
Denied in the Declaratory Act, 201. 
Aggression on, by the Townshend 
Acts, 203. 204, 205! Right of, asserted 
by the colonies, 210-229. Character 
of the defence of, 230. Interference 
with, postponed, 240. Aggression 
on, by Royal Instructions. 251. De- 
fence of, by the Philadelphia mer- 
chants, 255 Violation of, by the 
Massachusetts Regulating Acts, 347. 
Assertion of the right of, by the colo- 
nies, 350, 352. Recognition of, in the 
plan of union by Galloway, 367. 
Right of. claimed by the congress of 
1774, 371. Principles of, involved in 
Lord North's ultimatum, 412. Mes- 
sage of Franklin relative to, 413. Re- 
quest of Massachusetts to form, inde- 
pendent of the crown. 421. Of Meck- 
lenburg County, 422 Advice of 
congress as to Massachusetts, 428. 
Right of, recognized in Franklin's 
plan of union of 1775, 433 By con- 
gress in its reply to Lord North's 
plan, 434. In the instructions on in- 
dependence, 512, 531. In the Articles 
of Confederation, 576. Unwritten law, 
593 In the Constitution of the Unit- 
ed States, 605. See Local Govern- 
ments. 
Local governments, requests to congress 
to form, independent of the crown, 
421, 422, 443, 495, 496. New Hamp- 



shire, South Carolina, and Virginia 
advised to form, 448, 451. Formation 
of, equivalent to revolution, 449, 465. 
Formation of, opposed, 466. Views 
respecting the formation of, 480. Ac- 
tion on, by Massachusetts, 491. By 
New Hampshire, 492. By South Caro- 
lina, 493. Formation of, welcomed, 
495. Resolution of John Adams on, 
497, 498. Oppo.sition to the formation 
of, 497. Right of forming, reserved to 
each colony, 512, 531. Penn.sylvania 
on, 518. Delaware on, 523. New 
Jersey on, 524. Maryland on, 526. 
New York on, 529. On the establish- 
ment of, 563. Formation of, in a 
period of war, 565. Sphere of, pre- 
scribed by the sovereignty, 567, 588. 
Effect in Europe of the establishment 
of, 568. John Adams on the forma- 
tion of, 568, 617. Usurpation of na- 
tional functions by. 588. See Resolu- 
tion of May Fifteenth. 

Locke, John, on government, 8. 

London Chronicle, on disunion, 152. 

Lords of Trade and Plantations, forma- 
tion of, 45, 108. Indifference of, to 
French aggression, 130. Call of a 
convention by, 131. Accusation by, 
of the New York Assembly, 134. 

Louis XIV., dissolution bv, of the French 
Parliament, 230. 

Louisiana, purchase of, 3. 

Low, Isaac, 364 

Lowndes, Rawlins, 494, 568. 

Ludeman, prophecy of, 155. 

Luther. Alartin, on the Refonnation, 5. 

Lynch, Thomas Jr., 185, 186, 187, -360, 363, 
368, 372, 443, 546. 



M. 

Macaulav, Lord, on the revolution of 
1688, i07. 

Mackay, William, 267. 

Mackintosh, Sir James, eulogy of, on 
"De Jure Regni," 8, 124. On the 
American Constitution, 605. 

Madison, James, character of, 585. On 
nationality, 406, 415, 512. On inde- 
pendence, 514. On John Adams, 547. 
On clothing congress with coercive 
power, 579. On the vices of the Con- 
federation, 588, 590. On representa- 
tion. 592. On State rights, 593 On 
the convention of 1787, 589, 592, 596. 
Share of, in the Federalist, 599. On 
the Constitution, 600. On the pres- 
ervation of the State governments, 
602. On the operation of the Consti- 
tution, 605. 453, 51C, 544, 554, 555, 
575, 585, 587. 

Magna Charta cited by Massachusetts, 
46. 



632 



INDEX. 



Mahon. Lord, on the colonies, 159. On 
the Reguhtting Acts, 348. 

Maine, settlements in, 37. Excluded 
from the New England Confederacy, 
43. 

Maiden, Mass., on a republic, 507. 

Man, idea of, in tlie Pagan world, 6. 
Christian idea of. C, 9, 1G5, 183. 

Manly, lohn, triumphs of, 460. 

MansHeld, Lord, on American assem- 
blies, 231, 296, 346. 

Maps of America, 33, 34. 73, 102. 

Maquese Sachems, speech of, 86. 

Marblehead, on the Port Act, 322. 

ftLarchant, Henry, 284. 

Marshall, Christopher, 521. 

Marshall, John, on the Confederation, 
579. 

Martin, Governor, representations of, 
502. 

Martin, Luther, 590. Cited. 592. 

Maryland, motives of settlers of, 11. 
Origin of the legislature of. 19. Muni- 
cipalities in, 22 Invitation of. to 
settlers, 74. On correspondence -vvith 
the northern colonies, 85. Reply of, 
on a congress, 91. Delegates of, to 
the congress of 1765, 185; of 1774, 
362. Proclamation Act in, 253, 254. 
Chooses a committee of correspondence, 
312. Pledges in, to abide by the deci- 
sions of congress, 339. Condemnation 
by, of the Regulating Acts, 350. Let- 
ters from, in 1774, 387. Approval by, 
of the Association, 397. On inde- 
pendence, 442, 466, 525. On Union, 
527. Constitution of, adopted, 564. 
On the Confederation 574, 575. 

Mason, George, 510. On the king's 
proclamation, 453, 590. On State 
government. 593. On republican gov- 
ernment, 593, 596. 

Massachusetts, " Liberties," cited, 12. 
The Legislature of, 19 Patent of, 36. 
On taxation, 21. Municipalities in, 24. 
Public meeting in, 27. Writ against, 
37. Address of, to the Lords Com- 
missioners. 38 Disclaims aiming at 
sovereignty, 46. 60. Appeal in 1651 
to Long Parliament, 47. On the com- 
mission of Charles II., 55. Reply of, 
to the king's commissioners, 57. An- 
dros on the influence of, 77. Call by, 
of a congress, 83. Charter to, 104. 
On the governor's salary, 126. On a 
plan of Union, 147. Chooses com- 
mittee of correspondence in, 169. Cir- 
cular of, 171 On the Stamp Act, 172. 
Call of a congress by, 1765, 178. Dele- 
gates of, to the congress of 1765, 185; 
of 1774, 362 Proceedings of, in 1767, 
209, 210. Circular Letter of, 211. Or- 
dered to rescind the Circular Letter, 
216. Refusal of, 219. Approbation 
of, 221. Condemnation of, in Eng- 
land, 231. On royal instructions, 254. 



Call of a congress, 331. Assembly of, 
dissolved, 332. Resolve of, 333. Acts 
regulating charter of, 846. Enjoined 
to resist the Regulating Acts, 351, 352. 
Approval of, by congress, 369, 370. 
Military preparations in, 392 Pro- 
vincial congress in, 392. Committee 
of Safety of, 392. Approval by, of 
the Association, 396. Application of, 
on local govemnient, 421, 427. On 
loyalty in 1775, 428. Advice of con- 
gress to, 428. 491. Establishment of 
government by, 441, 492, 567. Proc- 
lamation of, 492. On independence, 
505, 507, 529 Act of, relating to civil 
processes in, 506. Shays' s rebellion 
in, 588. 

Mather, Increase, views of, on Leisler, 
94 Testimony to the loyalty of New 
England, 96. 

Maverick, Samuel, notice of, 52, 54. 

Mayhew. Jonathan, on Union, 207. 

McDonald, Allan, 502. 

McDonald, Donald, 502, 503. 

McDonald, Flora, 502. 

McHenrv, James, 590. 

McKean, Thomas, 185, 186, 187. 188, 
312, 360, 361, 363, 387, 469, 522, 523, 
537, 538. On the Declaration of In- 
dependence, 545, 546, 569. 

McKinley, John, 312 

Mccklenburgh Countv, N. C., resolves 
of, in 1775, 422. Note on, 422. Ad- 
vice to, 429. 

Mecklenburgh Declaration, 440. 

Mehelm, John, 313. 

Menator, map of America bv, in Hon- 
dius's edition of 1606. 34. " 

Michigan, first steamboat on, 2. 

Middlesex Countv, resolves of, 366. 

Middleton, Arthur, 546. 

Middleton, Henrv, 363. 

Mitflin, Thomas,''338, 303, 371, 372, 590. 

INIil borne. Jacob, 93. Execution of, 94. 

Mill, J. S , on nationality, 3. 

^lilton, John, on freedom, 8. Notice of, 
48. On liberty, 157. 

Minot, George Richards, cited on the ori- 
gin of parties, 126. 

Mississippi Vallej^, features of, 2. 

Molineaux, William, 260. Notice of, 
267, 305. 

Monroe, James, on sovereignty, 561. 
On the powers of congress, 562. 

Montagu, Admiral, 277, 278. 

Montesquieu, on the Indians, 4. 

Montgomer}-, fall of, 460. 

Moore, Charles, 185. 

Moore, Colono), 503. 

Moore's Creek Bridge, battle of, 460, 503. 

Morris, Lewis, 545. 

Morris, Robert, 126, 483, 523, 537, 538, 
545. On the iiecessitv of government, 
580, 583, 590. 

Morton, John, 185, 363, 545. 

Morton, Perez, on iiidependeace, 477. 



INDEX. 



638 



Municipalities, American, theory of, 22. 

In Europe, 15. 
Murdock, WilHam. 185, 187. 
Murray, Joseph, 137. 

N. 

Nation, idea of, in the press, 291. Defi- 
nition of, 503. Macivintosh on ele- 
ments of the growth of, 124 See 
United States. 

Nationality, sentiment of. 1. Basis of, 3. 
Dawnings of, 291. Development of, 
406, 452, 450, 479. Political utter- 
ances imbued with, 461 The passion 
of the popular party, 462. Correlative 
in development with the idea of repub- 
lican government. 483. Inspiration 
of, to the popular party, 553 Em- 
bodied in tiie Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, 556 See Nation. 

Necl<ar, cited, 427. 

Neison, Thomas, Jr., 510, 546, 569. 

Newburyport, on the Port Act, 322. 

New England, motives of settlers of, 11. 
Growth of, 36. State of, in 1643, 37. 
Favored by the Long Parliament, 44. 
Complaints against, 51. Lovaltv of, 
in 1602, 05. Described, in 1688, 75. 
Population of, in 1754, 104. Tribute 
to, by Bishop of St. Asaph, 105. Ho- 
mogeneity of, 106. Condition of, in 
^1774, 393. 

New England Confederacy, idea of, 29. 
Formation of, 39. Articles of, 40. 
Benefits of, 44. Called a war combi- 
nation, 51. Justified, 61. Fall of, 

63. Meetings of the commissioners 
of, 63. Service of, 63. Records of, 

64. V^iews of, bv historians, 66. 
Cited in 1772, 292. " 

New Hampshire, origin of the legisla- 
ture of, 20. Formation of municipali- 
ties in, 25. A separate province, 104. 
Controversy in, on representation, 126. 
On the congress of 1705, 185. Non- 
intercourse with, 253 Delegates of, 
in the congress of 1774, 303. Letters 
from, ill 1774, 382. Approval of the 
Association, 396. Independence sug- 
gested by, 421. Asks permission to 
form a government, 443. Advised to 
form a goverrmient. 448. Formation 
of government in, 492. Action of, on 
independence, 421, 530. Constitution 
of, 567. 

New Haven, 37, 39, 44, 52, 53, 63, 64. 

New Jer.*ey, origin of legislature of, 20. 
Formation of municipalities in, 23. 
Description of, 74. Effort of, against an 
illegal tax in 1680, 81, 104. Delegates 
of, to the congress of 17J5, 185. 
Chooses a committee of correspond- 
ence, 312. Pledges of, 340 Dele- 
gates of, in the congress of 1774, 363. 



Letters from, in 1774, 386. Approves 
the Association. 396. On Lord North's 
plan, 417. On independence, 466,524. 
(Constitution of, adopted, 564. Denies 
the requisitions of congress, 587. 

New Ncthedand, grant of, 12. Muni- 
cipalities of, 24. Reduction of, 55. 

New York, motives of settlers of, 11. 
Origin of, 12. Formation of the as- 
sembly of, 21. State of, in 1643. 34. 
Population of, iu 1088, 74. Factions 
of, in 1090, 88. On the prerogative, 
128. In 1755, 156. Committee of 
correspondence of, in 1764, 171. On 
the Stamp Act, 172. Delegates of, to 
the congress of 1706. 185. Sons of 
Liberty of, 184. Address of the as- 
semlily of, 183. Proposal of, for a 
congress, 243. Proposal of, to limit 
the non-importation agreement, 256, 
2.57. Non-intercourse with, 2.58. Tea, 
in 1773. shipped to. 2y8. Action in, 302, 
313. Committee of correspondence of, 
312. On a congress, 332, 333. Dele- 
gates of, to the congress of 1774, 364. 
Letters from, in 1774, 386. On the 
Association, 395, 398 Circular of, on 
North's plan, 418. Application of, 
respecting British troops, 421, 428. 
Provincial congress of, 440. On inde- 
pendence, 460. 528, 554. Constitu- 
tion of, adopted, 506. 

Newspapers, influence of, 128, 129. 

Nicholas, Robert Carter, 280. 

Nichols, Richard, notice of, 54. Action 
of, 55, 58, 60. 

Nicholson, General, arrival of, at Boston, 
118, 119. 

" Ninety-two," origin of, 219. 

"Ninetv-two" and ''Forty-five," use 
of. 229. 

Nobility, order of, recommended, 117. 
Suggested, 151. 

Non-importation agreement, renewal of, 
in 1707, 208 Violation of, 250. Ac- 
tion in favor of, in Virginia. 1709, 239. 
In the thirteen colonies, 239. Revived 
in 1774, 336. Decided upon, 372. 
Significance of, 373. 

Norfolk, burning of, 509. 

North Carolina, origin of legislature of, 
20 Municipalities in, 22. Action of, 
in 1764, 171. Chooses a committee of 
correspondence, 312 Delegates of, in 
the congress of 1774, 303. Letters 
from, in 1774 389 Approves the Asso- 
ciation, 397. Associations in, 416. 
Congress of, disclaim independence, 
440, 467 For reconciliation, 443. In- 
structions of, in f;\vor of independence, 
504, 514. Constitution of adopted, 565. 
See Mecklenburgh. 

North, Lord, notic^e of, 206. Character 
of, 249. Moves the Tea Act. 296. 
]\Ioves the bill to alter the charter of 
Massachusetts, 344, 345, 346. Message 



634 



INDEX. 



of, to Franklin, 412. 297, 317. 319, 
■146, 573, 575. 

North, l^nrd, plan of conciliation of, 411. 
George III. on, 411. Barre on. 411. 
Ch.itliam on, 412. Reception of, in 
the colonies. 417. Submitted of, to 
asseniljlies 417. Congress on, 434. 

Noyellos, .John Dc, 313. 



0. 



Ogden, Robert, 185, 189, 192. 

Oliver, Andrew, 119, 183. On Union, 
243, 252. 

Oliver, Peter, 273. 

Oregon Territory', acquisition of, 3. 

Orrery, Earl of, prophec}' respecting 
America 401. 

Osnaburgh, Bi>hop of, 598. 

Otis, Colonel, 220. 

Otis, .lames, on the peace of 1763, 160. 
On writs of assistance, 162. Notice 
of, 168, 177. Memorial of, on the pro- 
posed Stamp Act, 169. Rights of the 
British colonies by, 169. Proposes a 
congress, 177. On American manu- 
factures, 194. On repeal of the Stamp 
Act, 197. Speech of, against mobs, 
206. In the Massachusetts assembly, 
209. On the royal order, 217. 219, 
267, 268 On resisting unconstitutional 
acts, 299, 503. 

Oxenstiern, on American colonization, 
70. 



P. 

Paca, William, 254, 312, 362, 388, 527, 
537, 546. 

Paganism, political influence of, 7. 

Paine, Robert Treat, 302, 545. 

Paine, Thomas, notice of, 471. Pub- 
lishes "Common Sense," 476. Dia- 
logue by, 476, 477. (^ommendation 
of, 480. On the peace 582. 

Palmer, Mass., on independence, 507. 

Parker, .loel, paper of, on the towns of 
New England, 17, 26. 

Parker, AViliiam, 284. 

Parker, Sir Peter, approach of, to Charles- 
ton, 617. 

Parks, William. 60. 

Parsons, S. llolden. 276, 284. 

Parties of the Revolution, formation of, 
lfi4. 

Partridge. Oliver, 120. 137, 177, 178, 
185. 

Patterson, William, 591, 594. 

Payne, Benjamin, 284. 

Peace of Paris, exultation at, 160. 

Peace Commissioners, S. Adams on, 490. 
J. Adams on, 490 In 1778, 573. 

Peace, provisional articles signed, 580. 



Pendleton, Edmund, 179, 280, 361, 'o72, 
488. 510. 

Penhallow, Samuel, 119. 

Penn, Governor, 417. 

Penn, John, 137, 440, 546. 

Penn, Richard, 436. Cited, 437, 444, 
446. 

Penn, William, plan of union by, 110, 
112. Grant of charter by, 23. 

Pennsylvania, origin of the legislature 
of, 20. Formation of municipalities 
in, 23. Increase of, 74. Rejects the 
Albany plan, 147. On the Stamp Act, 
171. Delegates of, to the congress of 
1705, 185. Pledges of, 340. Condem- 
nation in, of the Regulating Acts, 349. 
Letters from, in 1774, 387. Approves 
the Association, 396. On Lord North's 
plan, 417. On independence, 465, 
466, 519, 523, 537. On changing the 
local government, 519. Constitution 
of, adopted, 565. End of charter in, 
565. 

Peters, Richard, 137. 

Pelition of the congress of 1774 to the 
king 376. Manuscript of, 377 How 
received in England. 409. Letter of 
agents concerning, 420. 

Petition of the congress of 1775, origin 
of, 435. View of, 439 Anxiety re- 
specting, 441. Reception of, 44:j. 
Effect of the news of the neglect of, 
447. 

Philadelphia increase of, 74. In 1755, 
156. Merchants of, on local govern- 
ment, 255. On the importation agree- 
ment, 257. Tea shipped to, in 1773, 
298. Action in, -302, 313. Committee 
of, on a congress, 332. 

Phillips, Frederick, 313. 

Phillips, William. 234, 317. 

Phips, Sir William, notice of, 89, 93. 

Pickering, .John, 284. 

Pickering, Timothy, 322, 544. 

Pierpont, Robert, 267. 

Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth, 314,590. 

Pincknev, Charles, 257, 314, 590, 591, 
594. 

Pitkin, William, 91. 92, 120, 140. 

Pitt, William. See Earl Chatliam. 

Pittsburgh, first steamboat at, 2. 

Pittslield, ^lasj , on a republic, 508. 

"Plan ot the American compact," 499. 

Plato, Atlantis of, 08. 

Plymouth, covenant of, 16. Origin of 
the legislature of, 19. Formation of 
municipalities in, 25. Patent of. 36, 
People of, ratify the New England 
Confederacy, 39. Disclaims the aim 
of independence, 56. 

Pomfret, Conn., letter of. 352. 

Population of the original thirteen States. 
3, 10. Number of, in 1643. 34; in 1688, 
75; in 1754, 105. Calculation respect- 
ing, in 1765, 200. Predictions of, 463. 
Table of, in 1774, 404. 



INDEX. 



635 



Ports, opening of, 486. 

Portsmouth, N. H., on the Port Act, 
322. Di.'javows independence, 467. 

Powell, William, 207. 

Pownall, Thomas, on sovereignty, 479, 
144, 145. On Union, 242. 

Pratt, Lord Camden, 153. 

Preble, Jeddediah, 219, 220. 

Presbyterians, aims of, for a Union, 243. 

Prescott, , 219. 

Prescott, James, 284. 

Pre.ston, letter of, 352. 

Price, Robert Friend, 313. 

Privateers, authorized, 486. 

Proclamation declaring rebellion, agreed 
upon, 409. Culmination of the aggres- 
sive acts, 410. Framing of, 445. Issue 
of, in London, 446. Printing of, in 
America, 447. Effect of, 448, 451, 453, 
454. 

Prophecies respecting America, in an- 
cient times, 68; in the colonial age, 
70, 99, 153, 157, 199, 200, 244, 248, 
290, 343, 401. 

Providence, town of, action of, on the 
Stamp Act. 181 ; on the Port Act, 322. 
Resolves of, in 1774, 330, 332. 

Public meetings, origm of, 27. 

Public opinion, during the period of the 
Stamp Act, 190. Embodiment of, 
228. On the Tea Act, 301. 

Publicity, custom of, 217. 

Puici, verses on America, 70. 

Pulsifer, David, 64. 

Putnam, Israel, 352, 365, 385, 415. 

Pynchon, John, 118. 



Quakers, address of, 465. 

Quarry, Robert, on the colonies, 115. 

On the Virginians, 126. 
Quincv, Josiah, 267. 
Quincv, Josiah. Jr.. speech of, 306, 334. 

On Union, 341, 400. 
Quincy, Josiah, remark of, on sovereigns, 

427. 



R. 



Races in America, account of, 103. 

Ramsay, David, 20, 22. On political 
agitation. 259. On the destruction of 
the tea, 311. On the Regulating Acts, 
357. On the Association, 398. On 
Washington, 431, 443. On independ 
ence, 453. On "Common Sense," 
476. On the South Carolnia consti- 
tution, 494, 608. 

Randall, Henry S., 288, 424, 544. 

K<indolph, Edmund, 179, 590, 591, 596. 

Kaiidol|ph, Edward, character of, 79, 
80. 



Randolph, Peyton, 234, 237, 280, 281, 
282, 361, 363, 366, 419, 429. [544. 

Randolph, T. Jefferson, memoirs &c. of, 

Rapalse, John, 313. 

Rawlins, Edward, 185. 

Raynal, Abbt^, 619. 

Read, George, 312, 363, 387, 396, 523, 
5.37, 545, 568. 590. 

Redfield, Isaac F., on the civil war, 4. 

Reed.Henr3',on local self-government,32. 

Reed, Joseph, 301, 316, 3-38, 568. 

Reformation essence of the, 5. 

Regulating Acts, passage of, 346. Char- 
acter of, 347. Aim of, 347. Recep- 
tion of, 348 Condemnation of 349. 
Resistance to, 356. Lord North on, 
412. 

Representation, introduction of, in Am- 
erica, 17. In the convention of 1787, 

592. 595. See Assemblies. 
Republic, rise of the, 31. Urged, 452. 

455 468 480, 481. Votes in favor oif 
a, 507, 508. 
Republican government, development of 
the idea of, 483. George Mason on, 

593. Why a success, 606. Tribute 
to, by Freeman, 607. Last word in 
political institutions, 4. Jefferson on, 
428. 

Republicanism, advocated b}'La Boetie, 
8. Applied in England, 9. Fears of, 
50. Attempts to check, 77, 241, 251. 
Obloquv of, 463. Silence of congress 
on, 499". 

Resolution of May Fifteenth, nature of, 
498. Platform of the popular party, 
498. Issues raised by, 518. Adopted 
in Pennsylvania, 520 Resolve against, 
burned, 521. Effect of, in Delaware, 
523; in New Jersey, 525, 564; in 
Maryland, 525; in Georgia, 566; in 
New York, 529. <See Local Govern- 
ment. 

Reuchhn, character of, 5. 

Revere, Paul, 366, 368. 

Revolution of 1640, -35. 

Revolution of 1688, in the colonies, 82. 
Effect of, 107. Macaulay on, 107. 

Revolution, how to understand a, 165. 
Acceptance of, 448, 450, 498. 

Rhoades Samuel, 363. 

Rhode Island, grant of, 12, Origin of 
the legislature of, 19. I'ormation of 
municipalities in, 25. Settlement of, 
37. Excluded from New England 
Confederacy, 43. Charter of, 52. 
Chooses, in 1764, a committee of cor- 
respondence, 171 Letter of, to Penn- 
sylvania, 171. Delegates of, to the 
congress of 1765, 185 Non-intercourse 
with, 239, 258. On Union, 333. 
Delegates of, in the congress of 1774, 
362. Letters from, in 1774, 385. Ap 
proval of the Association, 396. On 
independence, 504, Government of, 
566. 



636 



INDEX. 



Richmond, Duke of, on independence, 
573. 

Kiiijxgold, Thomas', 185. 

"Rising Glory of America," cited, 248. 

Uoberdeaii, Daniel, notice of, 520. 

Robertson, William, on America, 197. 

Robeson, Thomas, 312. 

Rochambeaii, Count, 580. 

Rodney, Cicsar, 185, 18G, 189, 312, 387, 
360, 361, 363, 372. 523, 537, 538, 545. 

Ross, George, 363, 458. 545. 

Rotch, Francis, 30G. 308. 

Rowland, Uavid, 185. 

Royal Governors, aim to check self- 
government, 124. Use of the preroga- 
tives, 125. Arbitrary views of, 127. 
Commendation of a congress by, 135. 

Royal Instructions, 251, 253. Beginning 
of their mission, 252. Opposition to, 
254. Relative to the Gaspee, 277. 

Royal Prerogative, nature of, 127. 
Blackstone on, 127. New York As- 
sembly on, 128. Lords of Trade on, 
134. 

Ruggles, Timothy, 177, 178, 185, 18G, 
188. 189, 192, 2.39. 

Runnymeite in America, prediction of a, 
343. Realized, 417. Aim of the barons 
at. 438. 

Rush. Benjamin, 469, 471. 472, 545, 546. 

Russell, liarl, on the Regulating Act, 
348, 411 

Russians, discoveries of in America, 102. 

Rutledge, Edward, 361, 363, 368, 496, 
5L5. 534, 538, 546, 569. 

Rutledge, John, 185, 186, 187, 360, 361, 
363, 372, 494, 495, 568, 590. 



S. 



Sabine, T,orenzo, cited, 502. 

Salem, action of, on the Port Act, 322. 

Saltonstall, , 119. 

SaltonstalL, Colonel, 178. 220. 

Sandwich, Lord. 296. 

Sanson, maps of, 33. Career of, 34. 

Schenectady, sack of, 88. Effect of, 89. 

Schlegel, Frederick, on the reforma- 
tion, 5. 

Schmidt, C, on the transformation of 
society, 6, 31. 

Schuyler, 119. 

Scollay, .John, on the destruction of the 
tea, 310. On independence, 315. 

Scotch Irish, emigration of, 103. 

Scotch, settlements of, 10. 

beaman, Benjamin, 312. 

Seaman, Zebulon, 313. 

Second Petition to the king, 429. Agreed 
to, 435 The press on, 436. Feeling 
as to, 441. Presentation of 445, 440. 
Efiect of the neglect of, 448. 

Sedgwick, Robert, notice oi; 48, 64. 

Seneca, venient annis of, 6S. 



Sergeant, .Jonathan Dickinson, 525, 540» 

Sewall, Samuel, 91, 92. 118. 

Shays's Rebellion, 588 

Sheafe, Cajitain, 178, 210. 

Sheafe, Jacob, 284. 

Sherburn, Henrv. Jr., 137. 

Sherman, Roger, 361, 362, 372, 444, 485, 
517, 545, 569, 590. 

Shirley, William, 119, 126. On French 
aggression, 135, 136. On Union, 146, 
150. 

Sidney', Algernon, 9. 

Silliman, Ebenezer, 284. 

Sim, Joseph, 312. 

Slaver}', recognized in the colonies, 22. 
Silence of the po[mlar leaders on, 570. 
Jefferson's denunciation of, 570. Not 
the difficulty of the revolutionary 
period, 570. ' Question of, in the con- 
vention of 1787. 592,594. 

Slaves, agreement not to import, 239, 
240, 487. 

Slave-trade, efforts to check the, 103. 
Denounced, 539. 

Smith, James, 545. 

Smith, J. Toumlin, on local seif-govem- 
ment, 15, 150. 

Smith, Richard, 363. 

Smith, William, 137, 140. 

Smith, Dr. William, on the future of 
America, 290, 484 

Smythe, Frederick, 278. 

Solemn League and Covenant, origin of, 
336. Proclamation against, 337. 

Somers, Lord, 108. 

Sons of Liberty, notice of, 166, 176, 183. 
Form committees of correspondence, 
183. Paper on 184. Urge a conti- 
nental union. 190. Associations of, 
dissolved, 2)2. 

Sothel, Seth, 82. 

South Carolina, origin of legislature of, 
20. Municipalities in, 22. First rep- 
resented in a congress, 120 On the 
Stamp Act, 171. On the congress 
of 1765, 182. Delegates of, to the con- 
gress of 1765, 185. Pledges of, 340. 
Condemnation of the Regulating Acts 
by, 350, 351. Delegates of, in the 
congress of 1774, 363. Sympathy of 
patriots of, with Boston, 390. Ap- 
proval of the Association, 395, 397. 
Associations in, 416. On Union, 418, 
440. On confederation, 443, 537, 538. 
Formation of government by, 448. 
F^stablishment of a constitution in, 493, 
495, 566. 

Sovcreigiit}'-, American, never offered to 
anj' power, 479. 

Sovereignty, in international law, begin- 
ning of, in America, 419. The United 
States declared a sovereignty, 557, 
571, 581. 

Sovereignty, charge of aiming at, 37, 46, 
65, 66. Errors in history connected 
with, 67. Course of the colonies re- 



INDEX. 



637 



specting, :iS, 47, 51. 53, 59, 60, 62, 65, 
96. 98, J23, 154, 187, 230, 232. 242, 
295, 315, 405. New England Con- 
federacy and, 66. Early plans of 
union consistent with allegiance to 
the, 117. Lord North on, 250. The 
American solution of, 424-427. Gui- 
zot on, 424 Congress hesitate to deal 
with, 428, 437, 444. Action of congress 
affecting, 448, 485-489, 498. Passed 
fpiin the crown to the people, 424 498, 
561. Sphere of the local and general 
governments prescribed by the, 427, 
567. National functions not intrusted 
to local oliicials by the, 588. Estab- 
lishment of the Constitution of the 
United States by the, 600. No divi- 
sion of the, 600. 

Sparks, Jared, 133, 154, 270, 439, 453, 
564. 

Spooner, 218. 

Spottswood, 119. 

Sprague, Kichard, 94. 

Stamp Act, suggested, 163. Passage 
of the. 175. Cliaracter of, 176. Asso- 
ciations to resist the, 183. Uprising 
against, in Boston, 183; in other 
places, 184. Kepeal of the, 196. 

Stamps, tax on, proposed, 151. 

Stanlev, Caleb, 118. 

Staples, William K., 279. 

St. Asaph, Hishop of, tribute to New 
England, 105. 

Stark, .John, 415. 

State, use of the term; 59, 209, 255. In 
the Constitution, 577, 601. 

State Governments. See Local Govern- 
ments. 

State Rights. See Local Self-govern- 
ment. 

States, colonies transformed into, 563. 
Basis of th_' governments of, 568. Re- 
fuse to treat separately with Great 
Britain, 573. JIultiplication of, 009. 

Stephen, Adam, on the congress of 1774, 
359. 

Stevens, Henry, 377. 

Stiles, Ezra, predicts a congress, 285. 
Cited, 290. Cited on Union, 341. Pre- 
dicts a Runnymede, 343. 

St. .lohn, J. Hector (Crevecceur), letters 
of, 103. 

Stockton, Richard, cited, 400, 534, 545, 
618. 

Stone, Thomas, 546, 569. 

Stoughton, William, 91, 92. 

Story, Joseph, on domestic parliaments, 
IS. 

Story, William, 507. 

Strong, C, 590. 

Suffolk County resolves, 366. Approval 
of, bj' congress, 360. 

Sugar Act. action on, 162, 163. 

Sullivan, James, 449, 469, 471. 

Sullivan, John, 361, 363, 372, 383, 493, 
568. 



Synod, termed an invasion of supremacy, 

121. 
Swedes, settlements of, 10. 
Sweetser, John, 267. 



Tanachaha, 119. 

Tappan, Christopher 284. 

Tasker, Benjamin, 137, 138, 140. 

Taylor, Edward, 313. 

Taylor, George, 545. 

Tea Act, origin of. 296. Design of, 297. 

Execution of, 298. Effect of, 298, 311. 

The resistance to. contemplated. 299. 

Opposition to, general, 301. Mission 

of the, 340. 
Tea shipped to Boston, public meeting 

relative to, 306. Destruction of, 308. 
Tea, destruction of, 309. Approval of, 

310. Gordon on, 311. Kamsav on, 

311. Effect of, in England,' 317. 
George IIL on, 319. 

Texas, annexation of, 3. 

Thacher, Oxenbridge, 173, 181. 

Theocracy, in New England, 43. 

Ihomson, Charles. 364, 419, 447, 514, 
519, 544 

Thornton, Matthew, 422, 443, 469, 545, 
546. 

Thurloe, 296. 

Thurloe, Lord cited, 319. 

Tilghman, Matthew, 312, 338, 362, 527. 

Tilghman. Edward, 185, 186 187. 

Tories principles of, 165, 170. Oppose 
the non-importation agreements, 239. 
Views of, in 1773, 2S7. Action of, 
against the Association, 395. On 
Union, 399. Spirit of the, 459. Dis- 
arming of the, 485. 

Torv partv in England, attain power, 
249. Character of, 249. 

Town meetings, laws relating to, 26. 
Prohibited, 80. 

Townsend, Penn.. 118, 119. 

Townshend, Charles, 131, 163. On the 
Stamp Act, 175. Character of, 203. 
Death of, 206. 

Townshend Revenue Acts, passage of, 
204. Nature of, 205. Partial repeal 
of, 240. 

Transylvania, asks admission to the 
Union, 444. 

Treat, Robert. 82, 83. On the New Eng- 
land Confederation, 87. 

Trumbull, J. Hammond, 64. 

Trumbull, John, 359. 

Trumbull, Jonathan. 508, 573. 

Trumbull, Joseph, 284 

Tryon, Governor, 440, 573 

Tucker, St. George, on the Virginia 
convention, 508 On the alarm in 
1770, 517. On the term nation, 563. 

Tucker, George, on slavery, 22. On the 
birth of the nation, 563 



638 



INDEX. 



Tucker, Samuel, 313. 
Turgot, 155. On the future of Amer- 
ica, 245. 



u. 



Union, one of the elements of national 
life, 11, 13. Early conception of, 28. 
Growth, a feature of, 28, 114. Progress 
of, 29. Providential nature of, 32, 327, 
386. 397, 495, 555. Hubbard's pre- 
diction of, 39. Ettorts, from 1637 to 
1642, to form a, 39. Hooker on the, 
40. Embodiment of, in the New Eng- 
land Confederacy, 43 Defence of, 47, 
161. Geographical preparation for, 55. 
Imperfect conception of, 64. Ten- 
dencies to, in 1688, 72, 84, 87, 89. 
State of the colonies when called to 
consider 104. Common danger sug- 
gested, 109. Penn's plan of, 110; 
Davenant's plan of. 111; Coxe's plan 
of, 113. Loyalty to the crown a fea- 
ture of, 114. Prerogative party on, 
114. Livingston's plan of, 115; Ken- 
nedy's plan of, 116; Dinwiddle's plan 
of, 116. Bernard on. 117. How par 
ties in the colonial age viewed, 117. 
Clinton's speech on, 120. Connection 
of congresses from 1684 to 1754 with, 
118-121. Jealousy of the crown at an 
American, 121. Call of a convention to 
form a, 132 Itoval governors on, 134, 
146 Device" Join or Die, "of 135,182. 
Albanv plan of, 141, 145, 148, 150. 
The press on, 145, 284, 327. Colonial 
assemblies on, 146, 147. The Privy 
Council on. 147. Hutchinson's pl'an 
of, 147, 013. Lords of Trade on, 148. 
Shirle3''s plan of, 150; Hahfax's plan 
of, 151; Colden's plan of, 151. Pre- 
dictions of the impossibility of, 151, 
152. Promotion ot, by committees of 
correspondence, 162 264. The salva- 
tion of the colonies dependent on, 167, 
241, 342. The colonies nothing with- 
out. 174 Invocation of, by the Stamj) 
Act, 177, 182, 183, 190, 195, 201, 281. 
Otis on, 177; Gadsden on, 190. 
Pledges of the Sons of Liberty on, 

190. Views of tlie Tories in 1765 on, 

191. Views of the Whigs in 1765 on, 

192. Moral power of, 193. Value 
of. 193. Richard Bland on, 199. The 
Whigs aim at, 207. Jonathan May- 
hew on, 207. The Massachusetts Cir- 
cular Letter on, 211, 231. Joy at the 
growth of, 228. Urged as the American 
political creed, 233. Protection of per- 
sonal liberty by, 238 Complete in 
adopting the non-importation policy, 
239. Pownal and others on, in 1768, 
242,318. Presbyterians on, 243 Pro- 
nounced to be broken 259. The great 
theme of S. Adams, 263. Injunction 



in behalf of, 272. Jefferson on, 279. 
Virginia plan of, 280, 282, 284, 311. 
Importance of 284, 362, 399. Not 
reached in 1773, 287. Demand for, 
292. Development of, bv the Port 
Act, 294. 318, 327. How saved, 311. 
Bond of, indissoluble, 4, 314, 341, 459. 
The country, 341. Galloway's plan 
of, 367. Embodiment of, in an Asso- 
ciation, 373, 395 Manifestation of the 
brotherhood of the, 391, 393 A power, 
399,413. Inner springs of 405 Penn- 
sj'lvania Assembly on, 417. Virginia 
Assembl3'on, 418. Plan of a perpetual, 
433. The action of parties ruled by, 
442. Design of to form an independ- 
ent American, 450, 454. 460. Nature 
of, 458. 555. Independence wise be- 
cause of the, 475. Issue of independ- 
ence strengthened the, 479. Etibrt to 
enlarge the, 485. Flag of the, 511. 
Paramount influence of, 523, 521, 523, 
524, 526, 531. The key of American 
politics for ten years, 554. The Dec- 
laration of Independence on, 555. An 
institution, 563. Embodiment of in 
the Articles of Confederation, 576. 
Adequate political form of, urged, 580. 
A sovereignty, 581. The palladium of 
safety, and most sacred thing in the 
Constitution of America, 582. Wash- 
ington on the requirements of, 586. 
The evil influence of local legislatures 
on, 588. Unwritten law, 593. Con- 
solidation of the aim of the framers of 
the Constitution, 597. Embodiment 
of, in the Constitution of the United 
States. 000, 601, 006, 609 Injunction 
to cherish, of ttie founders of the Re- 
public, 610 
United Colonies, ratification of the As- 
sociation of the, 395. Description of 
the, 405. Their relation of Union, 

405. Their tendency to independent 
States in Union, 406. The forma- 
tive process of law in, institutional, 

406. Congress of the. intrusted with 
matters of peace and war, 418. Con- 
gress of the. of 1775, 419, 459. Armv 
of the, 423. Object of the, 432, 4.35. 
Plan for a Constitution of the, 433. 
Flag of the, 459, 468, 511. Idea of 
forming one nation of the, 478, 480, 
488. Description of, on the verge of 
revolution. 513. jNIotion to declare the 
independence of the. 514. Transfor- 
mation of, into independent States, 
538. See United States 

United States, territory of, designed for 
a nation, 2. Area of, 3. Population 
of, 3. Polity of, 11, 30. Maxim of 
the base of socictj' in, 13. Name of, 
suggested, 532. Political ideal of 
the people of, when decreeing them- 
selves a nation, 30, 462. 404, 479, 
512, 530, 531, 553, 561, 569. Form 



INDEX. 



639 



one nation, 558 554. 562. 563, 564, 
600. Seal of the, 544. Will of the 
people of, as a nation, 42G, 455. De- 
velopment of the. as a nation provi- 
dential, 159, 530, 554. Sovereignty in, 
561. "Common Sense" on taking 
rank as a nation, 476. Government 
established for. as a nation, 600, 605. 
Termed a nation bv Congress, 563, 
581; bv Washington. 159, 579, 588; 
by Jefferson, 47U, 582, 586; by the 
Adamses, 563; by Monroe. 562. 
United States, Articles of Confederation, 
pi in of submitted in Congress, 481. 
Committee on, 517, 569. Agreed upon, 

570. Submitted to the legislatures, 

571. On the delay in ratitying, 573. 
Ratification of, 575, 577 Analyza- 
tion of, 576, 578. Beneficial effect of, 
578. Flag of, 578. Defects of, 579, 
584. 

United States, Constitution of the, drafts- 
man of 594. Signing of, 595. Attes- 
tation of, 596. Transmission of, to 
the people, 597. Debate on. in Con- 
gress, 597. Reception of, 597. Fea- 
tures of, 598. Opposition to. 598. For- 
mation of parties on. 599. Submission 
of. bv the local legislatures to the peo- 
ple, o99. Ratification of. 599. Estab- 
lished by the sovereign power, 600. 
Recognition by, of the States, 001. 
Government provided for in, 601. 
Laws under, supreme, 602. Ratifica- 
tion of, laid before Congress, 603. How 
to be put in operation, 603. Inaugu- 
ration of officers under, 603. An ex- 
periment, 604. Operation of, 607. 

"Universal Asylum, The," cited, 554. 

Upshur, Abel P., cited, 555. 



V. 

Vail, , 312. 

Venn, words of, cited, 318. 

Vergennes. Count, 488, 573. 

Vermont, bloodshed in, 258. 

Vetch. Samuel, 118, 119. 

Virginia, settlers of, 11. Representation 
established in, 17. Origin of the 
legislature of, 18 On taxation, 21. 
JIunicipalities in, 22, 23. Voters in, 
26. In 1643, 34 Population of, in 
1683, 74. Description of, in 1696. 74. 
Memorials of. 172. Action of, cited, 
173. Resolves of. on the Stamp Act, 
180. Effect of, 181, 183. On the 
Circular Let er, 213. Resolves of, in 
1769, 235, 237, 238. On the Port Act, 
324. On a congress, 333. On non- 
importation, 337. Pledges of, 340. 
On the Regulating Acts, 350. Dele- 
gates of, in the congress of 1774, 3'63. 
Letters from, in 1774, 383. Volunteer 
companies of, 394. Approval of the 



Association, 395, 397. On Lord 
North's plan, 418 On reconciliation, 
427. Declines to treat separately with 
England, 488 Advice to. respecting 
government, 508. Convention of 508. 
Proposes independence. 508, 510, 514. 
Declaration of rights by, 511. For- 
mation of government by, 512. Amend- 
ment of the Constitution of, 566. Ac- 
tion of, on the western lands. 574, 575. 
Proposes the convention of 1787, 586, 
589. Adoption of the Constitution by, 
599. 
Voltaire, remark of, 103. 

w. 

Wadsworth, Benjamin, 118. 

Waldren. Richard. 60. 

Wales, Nathaniel, 234. 

Walley, John, 91, 92. 

Walpole, Horace, 134. 

Walpole, Robert, 107. 

Walton, George. 546. 

Walton, Jacob, 312. 

Wanton, Joseph, 278, 362. 

Ward, Artemas. 219. 

Ward, Henry, 185, 234. 

Ward, Samuel, 135, 362, 372, 442, 444, 
447, 450, 469. 

Warren, James, 210. 218, 219,270,284, 
430, 441, 449, 452, 469, 491. 

Warren, Joseph, 27, 267, 301, 305, 309, 
314, 321, 328, 333, 334, 336, 352, 357, 
358,366,392, 414,430,441. 

Warren, Jlercy, letter to, 616. 

Washington, " George, in 1756, 133. 
Skirmish of, M'ith the French, 136. 
Letter of, in 1754, 137. On the growth 
of the nation, 159. Submits a non- 
importation agreement to the b'.ir- 
gesses, 239. Desire for reconciliation, 
315 One of the burgesses that called 
a convention. 323. Subscription of, 
for the poor of Boston, during the Port 
Act, 326. Chairma-i of a meeting 
■which agreed to abide by the decisions 
of congress, 338, 340; and resist the 
Regulating Acts, 350. Speech of, in 
the Virginia convention of 1774. 353. 
Patrick Henrv on, 361. In the con- 
gress of 1774. 361-363. Letter of, dis- 
claiming independence. 369. At the 
head of volunteers. 389. Chairman 
of a meeting in February, 1775, to 
enrol the inhabitants, 394. On the 
commencement of hostilities, 416, 421. 
Service of, that designated him as the 
commander-in-chief, 429. Letter of on 
his own nomination, 431. Pledge of, 
to labor for reconciliation, 438. First 
triumph of. 460. Unfurls the Flag of 
Thirteen Stripes. 463. Counsels a 
declaration of independence. 471. On 
independeiu e, 469, 478, 553 Order 



640 



INDEX. 



of. annonncinp; the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence to the 3™!}', 552 Water- 
mark on letter paper, used by, 572. 
On the necessity of government, 579, 

580. Proclamation of, on peace, 580. 
Farewell address of, to the army, 581. 
Re.signation by, of his commission, 

581. On the necessity of a government. 
586, 589, 590. Oii the divisions in 
the convention, 592. President, 603. 
Inaugural address of, 603. Support 
of the Constitution, 605. On the 
Union 610. 

Washington, John Augustine, 389. 

Watson, , 199. 

Watts, P. S.,616. 

Wayne, Anthony, 338. 

Webster, Daniel, on the congress of 1775, 
381, 486. On revolution. 498 On J. 
Adams's speeches, 534. On S Adams, 
546, 547. On Jefferson, 548. 

Webster, Pelatiah, 586. 

Wedderbuvne, 2D6. 

Welles, Samuel, 137. 

Wells, Samuel Adams, 449. 

Wells, William V., 263. 

Wendell, Jacob, 120. 

Wendell, Oliver, 267. 

Wentworth. John, 284. 

West, Benjami'i, 156. 

Western lands, question of, 574. 

Wetherell, John, 313. 

Whigs, ideas of, 164, 175, 192. Why a 
national party, 165. On taxation, 204. 
Against mobs, 206. Aim at Union, 
207, 399, 400. Charged with treason, 
232. Apathy of, in 1773, 287. Aims 
of, 288. Objects of, 315. Spirit of, 
518 For organization of, see Com- 
mittees of ( 'orrespondence. 

Whipple, William, 545. 

Whitcomb, 219. 

White, Benjamin. 219. 

White, Samuel, 178, 185. 

Wibird, Richard, 137. 

Wilkins, Isaac. 313. 

William and Mary, advent of, 81. Proc- 
lamation of, 83. Enthusiasm for, 
90. Colonial administration of, 107. 
(icorge Chahners on, 107. 

Williams, Elisha, 137. 

Williams. Roger, banishment of, 37. 
Notice oi', 48. Remark of, on Crom- 



well, 48. On the conversion of the 

Indians, 48. 
Williams. William. 284, 352, 385, 545. 

Williamson, , 582. 

Willing, William, 537, 538 
Willoughby, Francis, notice of, 57. 
Wilson": James, 338, 424, 425, 472, 483, 

515, 537, 538, 545, 590. 594 
Winslow, Edward, 38. 39, 46, 47, 48. 
Winslow, General, 178. 
Winthrop, John, governor, 36. On 

Winslow' s petition, 38. Hooker's 

letter to, 40. 
Winthrop, John, 330 
Wmthrop, Fitz John, 93. 
Wisner. Henry, 364. 
Witherspoon, John. 525, 545, 618. 
Wolcott, Oliver, 545. 
Wolcott, Roger, .Ir , 137. 
Woolcott, Erastus, 284. 
Wooster, General. 440. 
Worthington, Colonel, 1T8. 
Worthington, Beale, 312. 
Worthington, John, 137. 
AVraxall, Peter, l-;^ . 
Weare, Mesheck, 137, 155, 568. _ 
Wrentham. Mass., on reconciliation, 507. 
Wright. Governor, 192, 312. 
Writs of assistance, issue of 162. Otis's 

.speech on 162, 168 
Wyoming, bloodshed at. 258. 
Wvlly, Alexander. 186. 
Wythe, George, 172, 179, 234, 469, 485 

487, 524, 544, 546, 590. 



Yates, Robert, 590. 

Yonge, Sir William, on independence, 

153. 
York, Dukeof. notice of, 49, 53. Against 

assemblies, 78. 
Yorktown. surrender at, 580. 
Young, Thomas, 267, 305, 307, 308, 334. 
Young, William, 312. 



Zubley, D., Jr., 312, 441. 



Cambridge : Press of John Wilson and Son. 



LB 



Ap'lj 



